Presentation event this morning of the recently created Mental Health Commissioner, led by psychiatrist Belen González. And, in it, people with disorders have been heard who suffer a lot, a lot, from an unchosen situation, which on numerous occasions have their origin in a childhood of sexual abuse, violence, abandonment, and who do not receive the attention and care they need.
“People with mental disorders do not want to go to the health system, we are afraid of it, because they tie us up, they medicalize us, we are not respected, we are not listened to,” explained Silvia García, mental health trainer and patient diagnosed with the disorder. bipolar, in front of Belen González herself and the Minister of Health, Mónica García. And it went further: “In the psychiatric units of hospitals, children are being tied to the bed. They are returning to the asylum model,” she indicated.
The Mental Health Commissioner recognizes that we are returning to that admission model of the 70s and 80s in which respect for human rights remains in limbo and has committed to ensuring that in the psychiatric units that continue to increase in fundamental rights are respected in recent years.
This is one of the challenges that Belén González faces, as well as facing the wave of less serious mental problems that have overwhelmed the health system and that have to do with life itself. “We are calling social problems an illness. Many women come to consultations reporting problems of anxiety and insomnia and, when you go deeper, what they have are eternal days, with work, taking care of children, taking care of parents…And They can’t take it anymore,” he reflected.
Like those women, millions of people, including many young people, who take hypnosedatives (Spain is the country in the European Union that consumes the most) because “psychiatrists cannot change society”, they cannot improve working conditions, reduce the price of housing, said González, who has committed to working to “return social problems to society.”
And among those most affected by mental problems, young people. “How do they want us to feel if we cannot emancipate ourselves, if we cannot access housing, if we cannot carry out our vital projects?” asked Andrea González, president of the Youth Council, who recognizes that social problems that Spanish youth face is behind the wave of mental illnesses that grip them.
In this sense, the Minister of Health, Mónica García, has emphasized that the Mental Health Commissioner’s aim is to move the focus to the social conditions responsible for psychological suffering and has highlighted the need to put mental health at the center of all the politics.
“Life hurts you, but what is generating that pain – the minister recalled – is the lack of housing, sexist violence or work.”
