Mental health professionals highlight the Government’s announcement on the Mental Health Strategy
Mental health professionals agreed today in assessing the announcements made by President Alberto Fernández when he announced the National Mental Health Strategy that includes various actions to help “full recovery of psychosocial well-being” after going through the coronavirus pandemic.
Fernández recalled that the Covid-19 pandemic “generated stress, anxieties, fear and a lot of suffering”, and linked that situation with the “images that come from the war” in Europe, which “produce anguish and more uncertainty”.
Psychoanalyst Ricardo Antonowicz, former head of the Psychology service at the Dr. Julio Méndez Municipal Sanatorium and former coordinator of care activities at the Borda hospital, welcomed the announced measures to expand psychological and psychiatric coverage in health centers.
“The pandemic fully impacted the area of care for patients with mental health problems. The system in general could not respond to so much demand because, unfortunately, there was no forecast. The specific situation in the mental health area is dire,” he explained. .
“There is a prejudice about mental health since other diseases are considered a priority. However, it was here where the pandemic hit the hardest, and left the greatest consequences. The exclusion of thousands of people who experience mental health problems deepened and they were expelled from public hospitals because there are not enough shifts or professionals,” he added.
Antonowicz added that “something we have seen a lot is the increase in the consumption of alcohol, tobacco and paco to quell that pain. The prescription of psychotropic drugs without psychological treatment was also increased, just to calm the state of anguish caused by the pandemic, “he concluded.
Humberto Persano, psychiatrist and former General Director of Mental Health of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, stressed that “increasing the mental health budget is one of the greatest challenges, developing a mental health strategy has always been a postponed discipline.”
“Compliance with accessibility is one of the guarantees of equal opportunities for the entire population in access to the health system,” he added, and considered that “prioritizing mental health care so that it is not made invisible and a strategic mental health plan , is always welcome”, he concluded.
Persano particularly delved into the expansion of the telemedicine care network system to carry out professional interconsultations in dealing with complex cases in the provinces that establish agreements with the National Strategy announced this Monday.
“Telemedicine serves as a gateway to the health system where a professional can identify emergency or risk situations, provides opportunities for timely referral and shortens waiting times within the public health system,” he explained.
And he detailed that of 20 thousand calls received in a period of two years in the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires (CABA), 93% were resolved by telephone. This implies not saturating the health system, especially when there is such a strong demand during the pandemic and post-pandemic”, he detailed.
Diego Quindimil, psychologist and professor at the Faculty of Psychology of the University of Buenos Aires, highlighted the initiative of the national government and stated that “any expansion that is made in terms of mental health is welcome, because it is healthy and necessary.”
So he considered that “this program will end up consolidating the Mental Health Law.”
“The mental health law is based on the process of de-institutionalization, and it seems to me that the President’s announcement goes in a direction for the implementation of this law that in many aspects could not be implemented due to lack of budget and investment in mental health” Quindimil emphasized.
Regarding the coronavirus pandemic, he recalled that “it was traumatic for older adults who could not leave their homes, and it was traumatic for children and adolescents who need to be with their friends to get out of the family and build an identity beyond the family,” said Quindimil.
Manuel Vilaprino, psychiatrist and president of the Association of Argentine Psychiatrists (APSA) indicated that “everything that is made visible in terms of mental health is important”
The specialist emphasized that “in the pre-pandemic stage there were 10% of people with mental health problems, but after the pandemic it doubled,” he said, according to a study carried out by the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research (Conicet) during the month of September.
The president of the APSA agreed that “children and adolescents -in relation to confinement- were more vulnerable because they are growing, while in older adults they are withdrawn as a result of distancing.”
From the Faculty of Psychology of the UBA, for its part, they transmitted to Télam that they prefer “not to elaborate until they know the plan in depth”, however, they asserted that “all investment in mental health is welcome, since it is a historical claim faculty”.
