Veneto black jersey for the mental health network: among the latest in personnel and investments

You don’t need expensive machinery but people

The coordinator, Gerardo Favretto, guides us in the analysis. In the personal chapter of the mental health departments, the basic structure of the territorial medical response, one more negative figure: the Italian average of doctors 10.95, the regional average 7.65. The shortage concerns, in particular, psychologists (1.92 units against 3.59 for the national average) but also other figures: psychiatric rehabilitation technicians and social workers. For the sake of completeness, the Region equalizes the tricolor average when it comes to nurses and socio-health workers, but the set of numbers imposes the question: isn’t Veneto forgetting mental health? Favretto net: what we have been saying for a long time. Mental health and, in general, territorial assistance in areas of fragility, from psychosocial ones to addictions, from developmental age disorders to disability, are sectors in which there has not been sufficient investment in terms of programming, ideas and resources, in particular human resources. To work on mental health, explains the psychiatrist, we don’t need complicated and expensive machinery but people. When people are not there, problems begin: In Belluno, I will give you an example, they are at the gas pipe. There are literally no doctors to run the service. It is also true that, at this moment, there are no doctors, because the university trains few. an objective problem, however, is not enough: it is not suddenly discovered, in the morning, that the doctors are not there. You should have thought about it first, with good programming …

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The impact of the pandemic on the problem

A second intersection of data engages the problem in context: the black period that began in February 2020, with the flare-up of the Covid epidemic in Italy. From various studies – again Dr. Favretto – we know that the pandemic has put everyone in difficulty and has changed many social conditions. A one-third increase in people who may need assistance is indicated. To say that the need for mental health is not exhausted but, on the contrary, one of the issues that must be addressed even more, is a fact. Covid has only highlighted the frailties that already existed.

The need for collaboration between hospitals and territorial networks

The search for coordination, also because it is based on pre-pandemic data, indicates the stability of the number of patients treated by the services: About 70,000, explains the expert. The data on patients who come to the facilities for the first time is also stable. On the other hand, if we look at the use of drugs, we will see that 454,393 people take antidepressants (110.7 per thousand inhabitants, ed). On the other hand, those taking antipsychotics are 79,221. What does it mean? That drugs, which are very specific for mental disorders, are used by much more population than is followed by services: the data should make us think. Coordination for mental health beats strongly on the need to strengthen the therapeutic thread between hospitals and territorial networks, departments and their various articulations: the type of patient that requires continuity, for this – concludes Favretto – we are insisting on a regional conference on mental health that reschedules the entire care pathway. I am aware of the fact that there are problems and difficulties – says Manuela Lanzarin – and that there are problems to be solved, which were the subject of the webinar of March 13, which I attended. We have already worked on the organization and also on the staff, also through the famous “health budget”. We are moving forward on this, not only for mental health but also for the disability, which will result in a total taking over of the person. The Venetian councilor for Healthcare closes recalling the recent difficulties: We are working, clearly they are all open fronts. We have not been able to concentrate on every aspect due to the pandemic, but they are priorities on which we work.

The increase of clients between 2020 and 2021

A focus on the territory to give substance to analyzes and theories: We confirm the increase in requests for help but for the most common situations, with diagnoses related to anxiety and adaptation reactions, or those situations that are affected by fatigue at a general environmental level. The voice of Moreno De Rossi, director of the mental health department of the USL 3 Serenissima: We had a 20% increase in clients, from 5 thousand to about six thousand (reference period 2020 and the first months of 2021, ed). During the pandemic, even more cases of aggression / violence? This no, I cannot attest to a data of this type. The most serious pathologies, psychosis and personality disorder, remained the same. The last question also to Alessandro De Carlo: The symptoms of stress and anxiety – says the psychologist and professor of the University of Padua – are of three types: physiological, psychological and behavioral. The latter are modifications of habitual behavior, which, where they are associated with feelings of anger, frustration, pain, difficulty, fear, can become aggressive behaviors. Based on the literature, it could and can be predicted that certain behaviors would increase and, in retrospect, the increase can be traced back to this cause.

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