A clinic in Birmingham run by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), or Doctors Without Borders, has received more than 300 referrals since opening last year, offering specialised trauma-focused psychological care to refugees and asylum seekers in the city and surrounding areas.
The centre opened in July last year to address the “unmet mental healthcare needs of those seeking sanctuary”. It has held 521 consultations for patients, many of whom have survived conflict, persecution, torture and other forms of violence and exploitation in their home countries or on their migration journey.
Data reveals extent of trauma
Data MSF shared with the Guardian shows that of 170 case files reviewed by its clinicians, 88% documented experiences of violence and one in three detailed suicidal thoughts at the moment they came to the charity.
Azad*, an asylum seeker from Iran, came to the UK on a small boat after fleeing persecution. He was approached by MSF at the hotel in Birmingham where he was being accommodated. He said he had known for a long time that he needed help but had nowhere to turn. “It was the only person who didn’t see me as a number, listened like I’m a human,” he said.
A journey marked by violence
Azad’s journey to the UK began several years earlier, when Iranian authorities cracked down on protests that swept across the country in late 2022 against the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody. Azad, a Kurdish-Iranian civil engineer, took part in the demonstrations and said he had witnessed people being shot and others blinded. After authorities spotted him spraying graffiti, his father urged him to flee the country. The authorities later ransacked his family home, he said.
Azad travelled to Germany, where he applied for asylum but was rejected. The decision left him feeling hopeless. “There were times that I was feeling I have nothing to live for,” he said, recalling an attempt to take his own life. The UK was his last and only option, he said. When he arrived, he alleged border officials had sworn at him.
Hostility compounds struggles
MSF staff said the mental health struggles of their patients had been further compounded by the rise in “hostility and anti-migrant sentiment in the UK”. Some clients had to be moved from hotels far-right protesters routinely targeted, and one individual was physically assaulted.
A clinical psychologist at the clinic, who did not want to be named, said: “What they are routinely sharing with us is a lot of fear around the environment in the UK. Attitudes towards migrants becoming more and feeling more hostile. And that’s a combination of policy but also the general kind of narrative and rhetoric within the UK.”
Healing in a safe place
The charity said it was important for MSF to provide such intensive psychological treatment in the countries where refugees and asylum seekers hoped to settle. “If you open a wound and you cannot heal it, the wound will get worse,” said Fouzia Bara, a migration programme manager at MSF. “Birmingham is the safe place where we can start the healing process. This is why we are providing highly intensive care because unfortunately the journey of migration, it’s a journey of violence.”
Azad, who has been diagnosed with complex post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and is nearing the end of his treatment, described the transformative impact of the support. “They are lifesavers. I had nothing, there was no life in me. But they showed me, no, you can have a life,” he said.
* Name has been changed
