More than 200 community health professionals met in Reus as part of the conference focused on the Individualized Service Plan (PSI) to discuss the assembly of mental health programs.
The initiative, organized by the Institut Pere Mata, has put the existing challenges on the table, among which the coordination of the different programs and integrated care stand out. The assistant director of care at the Institut Pere Mata, Cori Juanpere, adds the difficulty in finding qualified personnel to treat this area.
Given the increase in interest in this service in recent years, Juanpere demands more human resources to address it. In the case of the PSI, it has ten professionals and about 150 patients in Reus.
The fit between the different mental and community health programs, as well as the transversality of the services, have focused on the day organized by the Institut Pere Mata de Reus this Thursday.
Through round tables, there has been debate on how to coordinate the different programs throughout Catalonia such as the Individualized Service Plan (PSI), the Guidance Team or the child and youth intervention programs.
In the case of Reus, more than two decades ago the Individualized Services Plan was launched, a program based on the direct support and recovery of patients with mental disorders from various areas, from health to social.
Currently, the program is staffed with a dozen professionals who care for 150 patients. According to Cori Juanper, this is a ratio defined by the mental health master plan that adjusts to the population of the capital of Baix Camp. Juanpere has emphasized the importance of having more human resources after the increase in interest in this service in recent years.
Professionals in the sector regret the difficulties in finding qualified professionals to dedicate themselves to this field in a context where mental health problems must be added to other social issues such as access to housing or the economic situation, which have a direct impact on people. and can lead to emotional discomfort.
“Professionals who are dedicated to mental health do not come out from under the rocks, an explicit will is necessary to dedicate yourself to it because it removes a lot from the person who cares for the patients,” Juanpere assured.
Although she has not quantified the number of specific professionals lacking in the mental health system, the director of the National Mental Health Pact, Magda Casamitjana, has insisted on the creation of multidisciplinary teams that help treat emotional distress and avoid collapsing services. current.
Regarding the National Mental Health Pact, the forecast is that starting in January the transversal objectives of the document on which work has been done in the last two years will be implemented.
The objective, according to Casamitjana, is to bet on a collective improvement in emotional discomfort, rather than individual, to make the population as a whole “much more resilient.”
