"Vietnamese mentally ill begin path to recovery
By Christine MacDonald, Globe Correspondent, Boston, MA
When Dorchester resident Khang Chien Lam arrived in this country two decades ago, the horrors he saw in his homeland -- first as a soldier fighting Vietnamese communist forces and later as a prisoner of war -- had scarred him so severely his vision blurred and he was unable to work or care for himself.
He slept only a few hours a night, haunted by flashbacks from years in an underground cell.
"The only living creatures were cockroaches and mice. He looked forward to their visits, as they were evidence of life," said Le My Doan, director of North Suffolk Mental Health's Southeast Asian Community Clinics.
North Suffolk has run a Vietnamese day program in East Boston for more than a decade. It is part of its Southeast Asian clinics, which also serve Cambodians at another center in Revere, providing psychiatric services to hundreds of patients in their native languages. Doctors at the clinics have also formed a collaborative to serve Department of Mental Health patients in Dorchester and Chinatown with mental health services, English classes, help finding housing, and other support.
While the center's medical director, Nancy McDonnell, said the vast majority of patients are older immigrants, like Lam, younger Vietnamese Americans have also received treatment. They come seeking help mostly for problems at home, in school, and with street gangs or drugs, though more debilitating illnesses affect some, such as Vinh Q. Le, who was being treated at the clinic for paranoid schizophrenia.
The East Boston man was hospitalized in critical condition Jan. 15 after he went into cardiac arrest during a struggle with Boston police officers attempting to arrest him in his Trenton Street apartment.
Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said last week that investigators plan to speak with Le, who was still in the hospital, if he recovers.
Khang Chien Lam found help at North Suffolk's East Boston program for depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.
"Gradually, the symptoms cleared and he got a job," said McDonnell.
And, while Lam said in an interview that he doesn't expect the flashbacks and nightmares to ever fully recede, he is grateful to function normally again.
"I'm glad I am not a burden to society," Lam said through a translator. A combination of medication and therapy has allowed him to regain his eyesight, lost to "conversion reaction blindness."
"It's the body's reaction to seeing such horrible things. It was fairly common when refugees first came over, usually in people who witnessed horrible trauma," McDonnell said.
Now Lam, who was laid off about two weeks ago from his job as a janitor, is looking for work again. "I would like to work. I am willing to do anything within my capacity," he said.
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