We are users of mental health services, families and friends, facing a series of problems in our everyday life in Greece. We have formed associations and we cooperate in the Forum for the Psychiatric Reform because the situation in the field is dire and is getting worse day by day. This is not an exaggeration, what we as users and families are experiencing, are daily violations of our basic human rights as citizens of Greece, stigma, social isolation, cut in our benefits and lack of or increase of the prices of our medication. We are also completely excluded from any process of formulating, discussing, deciding and implementing mental health policies and plans. We are at the receiving end of various implementations that are against the effort of psychiatric reform.
We ask you to listen to us and help us protect our right to have a say on what is happening with our lives and families. We used to say “nothing for the users, without the users”, but the sad truth is that this is something that has never happened in Greece. Please do not ignore our plea and help us to be heard, we need you as an ally in this effort since we cannot afford to lose another chance.
LISTEN TO US AND SUPPORT OUR DEMANDS
Our basic human rights are violated. We face abusive behaviour by the police, which is the medium to submit us to a hospital, with no training and in most of the times under inhuman conditions that insult our dignity and human existence. We still have the inhumane privilege to be first in the EU on involuntary psychiatric submissions, and almost 60% of all of these submissions to psychiatric hospitals are involuntary. Promote individualised/personalized treatment/care in a community based system as a therapeutic means. Protect the human rights of people with mental health problems.
Sectorization of the existing scarce and under threat psychiatric services has never worked, even though there was a related law dating from 1999. The committees most of the times were never active and they did not have users or family members on their compositions. Implement the sectorization of the psychiatric services and promote the active participation of users and their families in the committees.
Currently the psychiatric rehabilitation and deinstitulization is based mainly on the families of the users. The few community based programs are not sufficient, we need more. The huge economic and humanistic crisis that Greece is going thorough has made things even worse, we could say that in some instances we moved backwards and not forward. Family's rights and needs are being fragmented. The lack of social services and infrastructures, forces families to resort to private mental health clinics in order to receive and provide help for their relatives. The financial burden is immense on the already encumbered families. The social cohesion in Greece is in turmoil and the government is pushing users, families and mental health services to their limits, both psychologically and financially. Increase the community based programs, offer free and adequate social and mental health services and infrastructures of good quality, as well as access to adequate and affordable medication. Support the families. Make sure that people with mental health problems and their families have a minimum guaranteed income which covers their needs. Sensitize and include the communities and combat stigma and social exclusion.
There is a huge threat for the existing chronic patients, people that have lived more than 40 years in the two major psychiatric institutions with the way that the government is violently trying to close them. These two institutions are also the gatekeepers for a huge load of acute psychiatric cases from all over Greece. We all want for these institutions to close, but by transforming the services and having the resources to increase the community based treatments. There is no plan and no answer on what will happen next. Just “sketches on maps”, but we are talking about vulnerable people and not pawns. Don’t close the two major psychiatric institutions before an effective transformation of the services is put in place with adequate resources to increase the community based treatments.
There is a clear threat that the mental health memorandum signed by Greece and EU, will become just an administrative tool for the government to proceed violently to a distorted view of what psychiatric reform, rehabilitation and recovery means. Many of the goals have not been met, no one is evaluating this process, we are excluded by it and the result so far is catastrophic. We are extremely concerned at what will happen after 2015, since every year the budget for mental health services is dangerously low. Monitor the process with external evaluators, not appointed by the Ministry of Health, with an objective evaluation process, so that it is clear whether the goals of the memorandum have been met in actual changes and implementations.
All of the above and many more aspects are the reality that we are facing in Athens. The situation in the county, in the islands, in the small cities or villages is far worse, since the only model that has provided adequate mental health services, the mental health mobile units, are also under threat. Take special care for the people with mental health problems who live out of Athens, in the province, the islands, the small cities and villages.
The delusion of the mental health experts that they have all the answers and hence they can speak on behalf of the users must be abolished. We should be on the centre stage, discussing and forming policies and strategies, we should be able to have a chance to a whole life, not just a life, in order to have the best opportunity for recovery, and that can only be achieved if a whole system is finally developed and implemented based on the actual needs of the people, thus improving their capabilities and autonomy. Promote the real participation of the users and their families in all processes.
THE SITUATION IS CRITICAL WE NEED YOUR SUPPORT!
One cannot mention the words deinstitutionalization and community based psychiatry if one does not support the notion that good quality community mental health services, work and continuing education are one’s nonnegotiable priorities. These are the most important tools for recovery and emancipation. This path begins with personal projects to change the culture of mental illness, and extends to the challenge of productivity and to the possibility of real social and work inclusion. All these cannot be achieved without the unanimous stand and support of Greece’s and Europe’s mental health policy makers and activists, that this is Greece’s last chance for recovery. Since it is not just a national matter, it is an international one, and it is not only a matter of mental health, it is a matter of basic human rights.
Forum for the Psychiatric Reform : syn-skepsi.blogspot.gr
email: synskepsi@gmail.com
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