La salute mentale a Gaza.

Abstract

Mental health in Gaza. The article that follows - which is the gift of one of the most competent and responsible doctors in the field of international cooperation - is not only one of the very few reports on one of the most serious and least known aspects of the repression of the population of Gaza: it would like to be a cultural and methodological reminder of how great is the invisibility of the rights denied to all the populations that permanently live in a state of war in the world. The situation described here for such a fragile part of the Palestinian population is the most explicit and tragic case in which the chronicle of wars does not accept the blackmail of telling of winners and losers, of victims and destruction, but wants to play the role of restoring visibility, dignity, windows of future to concrete people, to their unmet needs, to the demand for profound attention, which is the main way to recognise and make violated rights possible again. The mental health of the paediatric and adolescent age is a very strong indicator (also for Italy - Save the Children's annual reports describe a worrying situation) of how much society and health care leave 'orphans' precisely those who have the most difficulty in resisting-overcoming the insecurity-fragility-non-autonomy created by all types of war: their request is first of all for an adoption that needs less doctors and medicine, and much more accompaniment made up of time, acceptance, and hope for the future. The most widespread war that affects society and health today is the one which excludes the right to personalised and lasting visibility-recognition. May Gaza become a permanent school of looking and listening.