The starting point is “terrible,” said Valencian president Carlos Mazón yesterday. The Valencian Community is the first community in the consumption of tranquilizers, the second in cannabis and the third in compulsive Internet use in schoolchildren aged 12 to 16. It is also the second autonomy with the highest rate of cases treated in Primary Care for suicidal ideation and the first for alcohol and cannabis consumption.
These are just three of the rankings led by the territory, which yesterday presented its Mental Health and Addictions Plan 2024-2027, a project that Mazón called “priority” and that was presented by the Minister of Health, Marciano Gómez, and the head of the Office of Mental Health, Bartolomé Pérez. “In mental health, the game of ideologies is over, because we are the third with the lowest rate of specialists in training and this is something fundamental,” said Pérez. The commissioner for mental health has been working with the minister since March 2023 on this proposal at the request of Mazón, who recalled how the Plan is “a commitment.”
“The data are terrible and we must give them the weight they have, it is not possible for us to be one of the three autonomous communities with the worst resources or to be in the last car,” Mazón lamented. The Plan is endowed with 283 million euros, of which the largest amounts are allocated to the so-called welfare and equitable model based on the “real needs” of the population (86.1 million) and on care for children and adolescents. (70.4 million). Specifically, the Plan contemplates allocating an additional 40.8 million euros in the 2024 budgets, to which another additional 71.3 million will be added in 2025; 80.8 million extra euros in 2026 and close to 90.9 million euros in 2027. A total of 724 in the legislature.
Caring for minors is one of the aspects where the Executive wants to influence. “The mental health problem is exacerbated, unfortunately. We are in the lead cars in child and adolescent pathologies and addictions and in the tail cars in material and human resources,” explained Minister Gómez. Thus, it is proposed to “progressively” create mental health services for children and adolescents and have 23 day hospitals for this group, as many as there are Health Psychology units. Likewise, create two half-stay units for children and young people.
“There is no health without mental health, without prevention in school, or in pregnancy,” said Bartolomé Pérez of a program that includes socio-emotional education at all levels of compulsory education (from 6 to 16 years). and the creation of Early Detection Units in schools.
And the new mental health program also proposes offering specific guidance to families through an online school on mental health and addictions continuously throughout the entire school year and the design and implementation of an orientation and counseling program for women with mental illness, including addictions, who are considering motherhood or who are already pregnant.
The “jewel in the crown,” according to the coordinator, will be the creation of eight interdepartmental First Episode Psychotic Units with “stable character and specific staff.” The provincial councils will intervene for the first time in the plan and, although there is no global figure, it is contemplated to increase the number of places in Psychiatry by a dozen or those in this specialty in child care by three more, in addition to improving training of health workers and teachers.
The project was criticized by the PSPV, which claims it is “a cheap copy” of the previous mental health plan presented by Ximo Puig, a program launched in 2022, endowed with 40 million euros and which had the initial incorporation of 250 professionals. Compromís, for its part, regretted that the budget “represents a cut of three million euros per year compared to the same plan designed by the Botànic government that is now in force.”
