UK policies harm mental health

Asylum seekers’ mental health is often damaged more by the
practical problems they face when they arrive in the UK than by the
pain and suffering they have fled, according to a consultant
psychiatrist.

Pat Bracken, of the Bradford Community Health Trust, who deals
with all the refugees with mental health problems in the city, made
the comment during a speech to the Royal College of
Psychiatrists.

She told delegates: “A number of people have said to me that
torture was not the worst thing that happened to them.”

Detention centres, the voucher system and a “seemingly arbitrary
approach to regional dispersal” had added to their problems, she
said, and created feelings of humiliation. “We rarely see the
suffering endured when they come to this country for support,” said
Braken.