Within the broad problem of mental health there are a handful of conflict situations –which are not frequent–, but when they occur they generate a huge disruption in the already usually suffered care of medical guards. These are certain emergencies in psychiatry, especially when the patient has an outbreak or acute crisis. In order to deal with it in the best way, a group of medical entities and professional organizations put together a Consensus with guidelines and suggestions on what the guard team should do in these cases.
“In public hospitals it is not so complex, because there are always psychiatric guards. But in the CABA there are a hundred private and union clinics and these centers do not usually have a psychiatric guard. That is why sometimes very disruptive and violent situations occur, where nobody knows very well how to act and that affects the patient a lot and, also, all the attention of the guard ”, he explained to PROFILE the city legislator Ana Maria Bou Perez, from the Vamos Juntos party. Against this background, and after having witnessed some of these situations personally, Bou Pérez coordinated an interdisciplinary work that spanned 18 months and has just published the first Consensus of Good Clinical Practices in Mental Health Emergencies for Multipurpose Clinics.
In the document, prepared by mental health professionals, delegates from clinics, the UBA and the contribution of the Superintendence of Health Services of the National Ministry of Health, a series of steps and unified responses were set out for, within the possibilities of each entity, cope in the best way these situations little prevalent, but high impact.
“In the consensus we detail from the data that the person who receives the request for help must collect, what technical terms to use, how to process the referrals or what data the doctor who attends a call of this type must have, among other things,” said Bou .
Something striking and positive that the former health minister of CABA highlighted is that this consensus was reached “with the contribution of all the professional sectors involved and we were also able to add contributions from the National Ministry of Health despite the fact that, as is known, it is of a different political colour”.
Finally, another important point proposed by the Consensus is that all health institutions carry out a couple of times a year drills of situations, so that the teams rehearse the appropriate response.
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