Santo Domingo.– The President Luis Abinader He acknowledged Monday that the recent tragedy in the sector Popcorn, where a woman was killed and five people injured by a man with history of mental health, highlights the persistent weaknesses in the National Psychiatric Care System.
During your participation in The weekly with the pressAbinader explained that the aggressor, Jean Andrés Pumarol FernándezI had access to treatment and economic resources, but this It was not enough to guarantee its stabilitybecause the system fails to ensure that patients fulfill their medications and receive proper accompaniment.
“That is the great challenge: it is not enough that there are treatments, if there is no environment that guarantees its follow -up. It is a shared failure, between the state and the family,” he said visibly moved.
Abinader also revealed that victim mortal, Yolanda Handal Abugabirshe was a sister of Nancy Handalfirst lady’s personal assistant, Raquel Arbage, what gave tragedy a Personal impact within the presidential environment. “It touched us all,” he said.
The crime occurred last Wednesday in the condominium Naco Dorado IV. Yolanda Handal, 70 years, It was mortally attacked With a white weapon, while five other people – including the father of the aggressor – were injured.
The president explained that the deinstitutionalization of psychiatric patients, a trend driven by more outpatient treatments Modernhas led to a 70% reduction in the number of people admitted to hospitals.
But this change, warned, It raises new riskssuch as decompensation cases without control, with fatal consequences.
This is not an isolated event. In recent years they have registered Several homicides starring people with diagnosed mental conditionsas the case of Young with schizophrenia that He killed his mother in San Cristóbal in 2022or that of a man in Santiago who murdered his brother in 2023 after suspending his medication.
Abinader concluded his intervention with a Urgent called to reinforce mental health care from a Integral perspectivethat combines stresses of the State, the health system and the family environment. “You have to review the current model. You can’t leave everything in the hands of a medical recipe,” he said.
