“It is essential to set up a National Mental Health Agency as soon as possible.” An action to be taken urgently because “the very serious lack of funding and health personnel puts the future of patients and their families at serious risk”. And “if the whole area of mental health is not reorganized as soon as possible, in a few years we will no longer be able to treat patients”. The alarm was sounded by Claudio Mencacci and Matteo Balestrieri, reconfirmed co-presidents of the Italian Society of Neuro-psycho-pharmacology (Sinpf) at the end of the 24th Sinpf National Congress, which closes today after 3 days of work in the two Milan offices and Venice-Mestre.
“Psychiatry services in Italy have been in great difficulty for many years, despite our complaints and requests to be heard,” says Balestrieri, professor of psychiatry at the University of Udine. “Departments are down (from 183 to 141) – he explains – and beds (-400, therefore 10%)” and “staff are on the run (in 2 years, a thousand psychiatrists and about 10 thousand nurses and other staff will be missing In fact, about 30% of them are missing in the territory, not to mention the resources, now from ‘low-income’ countries, which remain well below the European average (2.9% of the Health Fund instead of the 10% indicated in the community)”. According to the Sinpf leaders, “no medical area in Italy is in these conditions today”.
“Users are also decreasing, from 850 thousand in 2017 to 730 thousand in 2020, and certainly not due to the decrease in mental pathologies – Balestrieri points out – On the contrary, mental health problems are constantly growing”, a trend in which “Covid has offered an even stronger support. They concern not only adults, but increasingly adolescents and young adults, who require urgent interventions, specialist medical visits and specific treatments. Let us not forget that today’s children and adolescents will be tomorrow’s adults”. .
“The Sinpf by its nature seeks to create alliances with other scientific societies, in order to improve the response to mental health disorders in our country – explains Mencacci, director emeritus of psychiatry at the Fatebenefratelli Hospital in Milan – For this reason it proposes a reorganization of resources, the progressive creation of a push towards universal prevention and screening actions especially in the most sensitive segment of the population (adolescents, young adults, women and the elderly).In addition, Sinpf, together with the Italian Society of Psychiatry, the Society of Neuropsychiatry childhood and the Federation of Addiction Departments, was the first to launch the idea of a National Agency for Mental Health.There is an extreme need to coordinate resources to direct them appropriately according to criteria of scientific evidence, to have homogeneous in all regions the diagnostic-therapeutic protocols and to instill the concept of prevention in t whole population”.
The Sinpf meeting was attended by 2 thousand psychiatrists, neurologists, pharmacologists, psychologists, paediatricians, child neuropsychiatrists, general practitioners and nurses of various specialties. Three hundred speakers for 200 sessions and symposiums in two locations, constantly connected live.
“An example of multi-specialist and multi-professional medicine of the future”, highlights the scientific society. “At the center of attention of this first ‘widespread congress’ – summarizes a note – all the pharmacological innovations of the neurosciences, supported by topics dedicated to prevention and assistance to patients suffering from mental illnesses”. Finally “the congress, elected every 4 years, saw the unanimous reconfirmation of the outgoing management and the two co-presidents”.