Needed: more doctors in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

The city-based West Bengal Voluntary Health Association, which has been working in the far-flung archipelago since the December 26 disaster, is on the look-out for medical doctors who can spend six months to a year away from the mainland.

The organisation has, so far, been sending doctors and qualified counsellors for short stints to the region, but that is not enough.

?We cannot sustain the kind of help we have been extending if doctors are willing to stay there only for a week or two,? explains Snigdha Gohain, a counsellor working with the association, who recently returned from Port Blair.

There is only one resident psychiatrist on the islands, who sits at the government hospital in Port Blair. But more intervention is desperately required, says Gohain.

?Post-traumatic stress is there, slowly building up. Right now, survival instincts are keeping victims going. But soon, once they settle down, it will show,? she explains.

Like at Carmel School, a young girl lost both her parents but has not been talking about it at all. ?It will come out in her weaker moments, probably when she hits adolescence? It is the quiet ones who are the dangerous ones,? warns the counsellor.

The problem is likely to persist. Training sessions have been taken with volunteers from the community and medical professionals to identify those ? especially children ? suffering from deep tsunami-related trauma.

But ultimately, serious cases will have to be referred to a trained psychiatrist or counsellor, and the islanders have little to choose from.

The organisation ? which is working in association with Nimhans, Bangalore, for its psychological intervention ? has also set up a medical centre in Port Blair.

Doctors have been doing the rounds of primary health centres. There are also plans to set up a pathological lab.

Livelihood-generation projects are on in the South Andaman region. ?We have identified a number of community-based organisations and cooperatives through whom we are working,? explains Subhankar Bhattacharya of the West Bengal Voluntary Health Association. Nets, boats and other tools of trade are being distributed amongst fisherfolk and cultivators.