The Health Commission of the Chamber of Deputies and Deputies, summoned the minister of the portfolio, María Begoña Yarza, to address the complaint filed by the Secretary of State for torture and cruel and inhuman treatment filed against the El Salvador Psychiatric Hospital in Valparaíso .
The legal action was presented by Yarza before the Valparaíso Prosecutor’s Office on March 11, after the Minsal learned about the performance of electroconvulsive therapies without anesthesia, which does not comply with current regulations.
The aforementioned, workers of the psychiatric center expressed their rejection of the accusation, announcing a strike because they are being held responsible for the precariousness of the medical center. Within his demands, there is a public statement by Yarza retracting and retracting before the Public Ministry.
The deputy and president of the Health table of the Lower House, Tomás Lagomarsino, met with leaders of the National Confederation of Health Workers (Fenats), the Democratic Federation of University Health Professionals (Fedeprus) and doctors from the hospital alluded to.
“Throughout our health system there are thousands of doctors, professionals, technicians, workers doing a lot with very little. And the complaint made by the health minister not only affects those who work at Hospital El Salvador, but also to those who throughout the country give their all, with what they have available in medicine, infrastructure, supplies, human resources,” he said.
“All those who have been part of the health system and those who are today, of course, feel very affected by this complaint. We know that the Government is advancing in acts of reparation towards the workers of this hospital, but of course there are pending matters, which the leaders of this hospital have not listed and that I intend, in my role, to be a channel of communication so that these points are resolved,” he added.
In that sense, Lagomarsino indicated that they have agreed in the commission to invite Minister Yarza to discuss, among other things, the problem of the psychiatric center.
“Mental and psychiatric health have been widely stigmatized in our country and what the minister has done, in my opinion, deepens this stigmatization and this has led to multiple conflicts, problems that have arisen in the Hospital,” he declared.
“The officials themselves have had to discuss this with their families, they have had to cover the logos of the vehicles. Many patients are now afraid of reaching this health center as a result of what the minister has said and, in that sense, It has done a damage that in my opinion is irreparable and that every act of reparation goes to the extent of mitigating the damage that has been done, which is very difficult,” he added.
The former leader of Confusam maintained that “officials told us that of the four psychiatric hospitals that Chile has, El Salvador is the most abandoned of all of them.”
“For this reason, we hope that together with the acts of reparation that we can send to the political committee so that it can be channeled, we can open a deeper debate on the mental health that we want for our country, and how we can improve the conditions of Hospital El Salvador. on the issue of infrastructure, rains, heating, sewage, and we hope that it will also be an opportunity,” he concluded.
