On a front line.

Abstract

Like the patients, doctors in Sarajevo depend largely on humanitarian aid; everyone in the public sector has worked without pay for almost three years. The hospital is on a front line; yet the psychiatric department continues to function, even conducting large scale studies of psychosocial aspects of war in Bosnia-Hercegovina. The type of inpatient morbidity and treatment patterns have changed. A plethora of psychosocial rehabilitation programmes has emerged, including counselling, drop in centres, and attending to special needs of elderly people, schoolchildren, and women. The most prominent psychological symptoms were exhaustion at the prospect of a third winter of war and bewilderment at the Western stereotype of Bosnians as Muslim fundamentalists.