Freedom from torture
Those of you who are regular visitors to the surgery will know that this is a charity dear to my heart. Many of you will have contributed to fundraising through the purchase of cards at the flu clinics and other activities.
For my first few years in practice perhaps naively, I didn’t really think about torture as a problem for a suburban GP but it is and increasingly in the last twenty years it has become part of our everyday work.
Wickham Park Surgery has patients suffering from post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) dating from WW2 and not acknowledged or treated for years, as well as those suffering PTSD from more recent conflicts. We have patients who have been tortured for no other reason than because of their faith, ethnicity, race gender, sexuality or political beliefs.
In this small suburban general practice we see refugees, asylum seekers, the displaced and the damaged and all living locally and trying to survive immense physical and emotional trauma.
Here are the voices of a few:
‘l
feel I am dirty. I feel I have their fingerprints on me’. Survivor from Zimbabwe
‘I thought about suicide. I felt so bad I asked to be executed. I
thought I could try to electrocute myself with the ceiling light. I wished for
death, what more could they do to me?’ Araz, Iran
‘I was so poorly when I first came to Freedom from Torture. I was so depressed and I was feeling I should just stop my life and kill myself. But counselling gave me hope. It helped me see that even if I had a terrible past, it was in the past and I could start to see life positively.’ Camille, survivor from Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)
A friend and fellow supporter of Freedom from Torture has undertaken to cycle the 969 miles from Land's End to John O'Groats in 9 days during September. This also involves 56,000ft of climbing.
If any of you feel able to sponsor him Freedom from Torture would receive all the sponsor monies to assist in their work. There is a sponsor form and a collection tin at reception in the surgery and he can also be sponsored through Just Giving by clicking on this link justgiving.com/Paul-Frankland2
Thank you.
