Written by Isaura Daniel
A group of ten countries formed by the World Health Organization (WHO) to serve as a reference in mental health services include Brazil. The WHO selected countries that were able to increase psychiatric services to become part of a discussion group and offer their strategies as models for other regions to follow.
The action is part of a program launched by the WHO in 2008 to ensure treatment, within ten years, of the prevailing mental health conditions among populations, such as depression, schizophrenia, drug-related disorders, epilepsy, Alzheimer’s, and mental health disorder among children.
These types of problems, according to the Mental Health coordinator of the Brazilian Ministry of Health, Pedro Gabriel, affect 12% to 15% of the world population. In Brazil, as of 2002, 21% of the population had access to treatment for those diseases, whereas the current rate is 57%.
What the government did was create Psychosocial Attention Centers (Caps) in municipalities located in the interior of the states. Caps units operate in tandem with the Family Health Program of the federal government and monitor the health of patients, but do not offer inpatient treatment. The number of beds in psychiatric hospitals, however, decreased from 59,000 in 2001 to 36,000 last year.
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