Aberfan by Iain McLean Martin Johnes

Author:Iain McLean, Martin Johnes [Iain McLean, Martin Johnes]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781860571459
Google: VtLezQEACAAJ
Publisher: Welsh Academic Press
Published: 2017-01-15T01:00:27+00:00

Psycho-social Care at Aberfan

This was the context in which Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council took the decision to handle the disaster using its own welfare services. The offers of outside help were ‘tactfully declined’ and ‘fended off’.23 Local services had set to work very quickly, although their work was deliberately not publicised for fear of making the situation worse.24 Dr English, the consultant psychiatrist responsible for Aberfan, wrote to the British Medical Journal saying that the existing service was adequate. He continued,

What we wish to avoid is the risk of predisposition to mental illness as a consequence of people outside the area anticipating such among the bereaved families, and allowing their fears to be made known to the residents of Aberfan. … If, however, there is a marked increase in cases of breakdown directly due to the disaster, the doctors treating the patients must understand the community as it is in normal circumstances, to be aware of the fears and thoughts they share in day-to-day living, and this can best be done by the doctors whom they know well and whose advice they trust.25

Thus the decision not to accept external assistance was rooted in a desire to help Aberfan. The continuation of this policy was influenced by outside bodies’ proposals to carry out research in association with the assistance they were offering. The people of Aberfan were already suffering from the glare of publicity and had no wish to become guinea pigs. Thus research plans were declined and the existing services struggled on alone.26

In line with the then current thinking, some of the relevant officials thought that residents of Aberfan who were seriously disturbed by the disaster had prior family problems or, in the case of children, pre-existing difficulties such as enuresis or temper tantrums.27 ‘Broadly speaking’ wrote the local child psychologist, ‘the children who were most affected were those with other anxiety creating situations in their backgrounds. Of the first few cases that were referred, several were from families in which there had been a striking number of grief situations in the past, and this seemed to have made them and their parents more vulnerable.’28 The tendency to view the situation through such a lens must have clouded the view of the need for a more comprehensive scheme of counselling and psychological support.

Helping Aberfan thus fell largely on the shoulders of the local available services and, in particular, two local psychiatrists and the local general practitioners. The three GPs in the area were under tremendous pressure; indeed, one had lost a child himself in the disaster. Two left within a year of the tragedy. Finding replacements proved problematic and those doctors who were brought in were not Welsh and, in a community distrustful of outsiders, had problems winning the confidence of their patients.29 There was outside support and advice available to the psychiatrist, general practitioners, and social workers, especially from the Tavistock Institute in London. Its advice was found useful; however the Institute’s plans for an outside team to

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.