Promoting Mental Health as a Universal Human Right: Challenges and Perspectives in Algeciras

Algeciras

The WHO (World Health Organization) notes that World Mental Health Day 2023 2 is an opportunity for individuals and communities to unite around the motto Mental health is a universal human right to improve knowledge, raise awareness and promote measures that promote and protect the mental health of all as a universal human right.

Mental health is a basic human right for everyone. “Everyone, no matter who they are or where they are, has the right to enjoy the highest attainable standard of mental health, which includes the right to be protected from mental health risks; the right to available, accessible, and accessible mental health care. , dignified and of quality; and the right to freedom, independence and integration into their social environment2.

He adds that “good mental health is essential for our general health and well-being. However, one in eight people in the world suffers from a mental health problem, which can impact their physical health, their well-being, their relationship with others. and their livelihoods. In addition, more and more adolescents and young people present with mental health problems.

The WHO states that no person should be deprived of their human rights or excluded from decisions about their own health because they suffer from a mental health problem. However, around the world, these people continue to see their human rights limited in different ways. “A good number are discriminated against and excluded from life together, while many more do not have the mental health services they need or receive care that does not respect their human rights.”

WHO continues to work with partners “to ensure that mental health is valued, promoted and protected, and that urgent action is taken to enable all people to realize their human rights and obtain appropriate mental health care.” quality they need. In the World Mental Health Day 2023 campaign you will find more information about your fundamental right to mental health and how to protect the rights of others.”

Pedro Piñero, Mental Health care coordinator in Campo de Gibraltar, has gone through the program and explained that “there are six services that cover the entire region, which has a population of 273,000 inhabitants. These six units are distributed between the East and West Health Management Areas. In La Línea we have the Community Mental Health Unit and Algeciras another that covers the rest of the populations, Los Barrios and Tarifa.”

The care coordinator says that “these people are cared for as best as possible, we have the resources we have that are quite limited. We all know the lack of specialists there are, in psychiatry and psychology we have a number of psychiatrists similar to the ones we had many years ago. The problem is that there are no psychiatrists to hire. Currently we have 18 psychiatrists, although they are actually less because 8 of them have the right to reduced hours for family care, etc… so we have 14, 5 psychiatrists. In addition, this year 5 psychiatrists are retiring, when we get new psychiatrists there will be 2 and in September of next year, so we will have 5 fewer psychiatrists for one year.”

Piñero recognizes that the mentally ill is stigmatized, “in Mental Health we have a constant fight against stigma, the mental patient is an outcast, less and less, but he continues to be an outcast in all areas, even in the families themselves who have a mental patient; I already say that perhaps it is becoming less and less, they are trying to promote mental health not hiding it, teaching the population that a mentally ill person is a person with a problem such as having a heart problem and that it must be treated so that he is in the best conditions to have as normal a life as possible within his capabilities.

For Piñero, the message that should remain is that “society in general and professionals from other branches of health become aware that mental health is just another illness, it is something that those of us who are health professionals have to treat and that We have to know how to act with it and we are, from the Mental Health Unit, to help them. Currently there is even a SAS (Andalusian Health Service) program that is a psychologist in primary care, we have 2 psychologists, only 2 psychologists for 10 health centers, one in central Algeciras and another in San Roque. We would need 8 more psychologists in this region.”

2023-10-10 15:10:39
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