“If I am here today, alive and present, it is thanks to the operators of the Trieste Mental Health Center. I have been attending these services for over 30 years. And I would like to express, on behalf of all the people who know what psychic suffering is, our concern for what is happening “.
Silva Bon is one of the voices that took part in the appointment in Trieste, organized by health workers, family members and people in care who intend to raise the alarm on the risks of the deterioration of the Basaglia model, a treatment system that has made school in Italy and in abroad and that has revolutionized the approach to mental distress.
Mental health: who has betrayed the Law 180
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“Giving back the word to the mad is what Basaglia did fundamentally – he continues Silva -. It is something that underlies our freedom. That of being able to return, after the crisis, to one’s home, to one’s work and to one’s interests. “Although the concepts it expresses are known, for some time those who have been interested in the topic have said that they have witnessed a progressive threat from the Trieste model, whose validity is recognized internationally.
It was some who brought the theme back into vogue anomalies found in a competition for the management of the Trieste mental health center 1, whose unconvincing results prompted five former directors of the Department of Healthcare Organizations of the Region to write a text that in a few hours went around the world and which turned into a petition that collected over 500 signatures in defense of the Basaglia approach.
Mental health, the alarm of the former directors of Trieste: “This is how they cancel the Basaglia model”
by Marco Ballico
“Many have responded to the letter we have disclosed, hundreds of support messages have arrived – he explained Mezzina, during the press conference -. Unasam (the European Organization of Family Associations), the Italian society of psychiatry, national coordinators of mental health in Brazil and Argentina, researchers of various settings wrote to us. They all say they are scandalized by the risk of seeing a model like the one in Trieste, considered a world reference point, dismantled “.
The case, specifically, exploded after, in the race for the role of director of the Mental Health Center 1 in Trieste, two external professionals were at the top of the ranking, despite the fact that before the oral phase they started with a significantly lower score than the colleagues “Basagliani”. The questions that the former directors demand from the Administration are now many. For example, why was there no question in the evaluation about the management of the 24 Hour Mental Health Center, which is the subject of the competition? And, again, why was the interview behind closed doors, compared to what was written in the announcement?
“The question of the competition has clearly brought out what was already known. We have been experiencing a progressive condition of shameful hostility for years – he said. Peppe Dell’Acqua, right arm of Franco Basaglia -. A sense of fear has spread in Mental Health Centers as well as in districts. Nobody can say anything if they are not authorized. But, at the same time, the management is closed in a magic circle and does not speak to anyone. It has a bad effect, in a place that has always represented the most total opening “.
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Even the relatives of those suffering from psychiatric disorders warn about the risk of seeing gradually dismantled a health structure that guarantees them a bit of peace of mind. “We have seen a deterioration of resources for two or three years, and it is a problem, because the Trieste model works. There are people who come from Rome on purpose to be treated here – he explains. Claudio Cossi, president of the A.Fa.So.P. NoiInsieme non-profit organization -. I am the father of a 35 year old boy who has been in treatment for ten. I was catapulted into this reality that I did not know. And when I found out about mental health management in other regions, I realized I was very lucky to be here. Yet what is happening could be the beginning of a disaster. “
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He also shares his experience of care according to the Basaglia model Elena Cerkvenic: “Life is not easy for us crazy. It is very easy, however, for those who do not know what mental suffering is to stigmatize us, to have prejudices against us. Franco Basaglia has fought to ensure our freedom, human treatment, treatment of care within the city life, outside the asylum walls. We do not want to give it up “.
The testimony of Elena Church
What future for us crazy?
“I feel deeply indignant about what is happening in the mental health policy of our city. I have a degree in languages, I work as a volunteer in the cultural field.
27 years ago i happened to experience the atrocities in the Haar asylum in Munich. Since then, thanks to the love of my husband, I returned to Trieste, where I was born and have always lived, for decades and still today they take care of me as a person who lives the experience of schizoaffective and bipolar disorder psychiatrists, psychiatrists, psychologists, psychologists and mental health workers in my city. Through the care provided to me by the professionals I have managed and am able to live with my disorder and lead a complete and full life every day, in particular having been able to build around me a social network so important and solid that in moments when I feel bad, I it strengthens, supports me, encourages me by lifting myself up, vitally, from the rubble of my discomfort.
The professionals of the mental health services of Trieste represent my family, to whom I want an infinite good for the great professionalism and humanity that they have shown me in the exercise of their profession in more than 25 years of care dedicated to me. I have never been mistreated. Violence was never inflicted on me in the psychiatric diagnosis and treatment service where, unfortunately, often, due to crises, I was hospitalized, sometimes even with compulsory health treatments. I have never been tied up. I was helped and supported in activating tools and strategies to stay in an optimal relationship within my family context, with my husband and my son, to feel good in relationships outside my family.
Life is not easy for us crazy. On the other hand, it is very easy for those who do not know what mental suffering is to stigmatize us, to have prejudices against us. Franco Basaglia fought to ensure our freedom, human treatments, treatment treatments within the city life, outside the mental hospital walls. We don’t want to give it up.
I was able to be free, here in Trieste, despite being crazy, I was able to have a family, husband and son, whom I love more than any other person in the world and from whom I am loved and respected for who I am, with all my faults and with all my sufferings.
Thanks to the psychiatrist from Basaglia who encouraged me to enroll in the second degree course in philosophy, I made the decision to do so. I was delighted. I have had and still have professionals beside me who have believed and still believe in my human, intellectual and social potential and still support me in developing it with constancy. When I was hospitalized, I chatted, as an equal, with the psychiatrist in a historic café in my city over an aperitif. This is Basaglian psychiatry. Thank you, Basaglia, but what future lies ahead for us crazy? “
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