The appeal letter to the institutions is signed by 91 heads of health departments
mental. The letter is addressed to the highest offices of the State, including the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella, the Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, the Minister of Health Orazio Schillaci, the presidents of the Chamber and Senate Lorenzo Fontana and Ignazio La Russa as well as the Coordinator of the Health Commission of the Conference of Regions and Autonomous Provinces Raffaele Donini.
“The dramatic conditions into which we are slipping more and more allow the DSMs to provide the services which, instead, should be guaranteed by the Essential Levels of Assistance with extreme difficulty. A situation that has worsened with the pandemic and with social and economic problems.
There is a need for concrete and immediate initiatives to mend the increasingly frayed public network of DSMs, also with a relaunch of psychotherapeutic psychological pathways within them, to achieve community mental health, capable of giving integrated responses to the various biological aspects , psychological and social.
We ask, addressing your sensitivity, to start a concrete path by binding resources defined for the public services of the DSM, allowing the Regions to implement an extraordinary recruitment plan as of 2023, according to the standards for the territorial assistance of mental health services defined just a few days ago from Age.na.s”.
“It is a question of allocating, at most in three years, over 2 billion in order to reach the minimum objective of 5% of the health fund for mental health, as per the commitment of the Presidents of the Regions in 2001, also referred to by the recent ruling of the Constitutional Court n. 22 of 2022. With the hope that this letter of appeal, born jointly from the conscience of the Directors of the Italian Mental Health Departments, may lead to your authoritative intervention so that our cry of alarm is welcomed, to protect millions of citizens with mental and of their families”.