While working within the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), I’ve often come across folks with psychiatric disorders. I wondered if there was a place for them to go—medical insurance isn’t often available and just getting to a hospital is almost impossible in remote, insecure regions.

On my last trip, I visited one of the places people can go: the Brothers of Charity Sante Mental Hospital in Goma, the largest city in the hotbed of an ongoing conflict that has killed millions since the mid-1990s.

The hospital specializes in psychiatric treatments. Several hundred people from in and around the province of North Kivu visit every month for treatment. When I went in June, there were 45 patients—20 women