The Family Medicine Association responds to ASSE leader: Authorities' 'lack of knowledge' about mental health is 'dangerous' | newspaper

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Following the statements of Eduardo Katz, Director of Mental Health at the State Health Services Administration (ASSE), in Informative sarandiwhich stated that “out of every ten people who go to the mental health team, four should not attend,” the Uruguayan Society of Family and Community Medicine (Sumefac) issued a statement with some clarifications.

“We have to train the first level of care, which is what ASSE is working on,” Katz also said in that medium, because users come to the psychiatrist because “their general practitioner or family doctor has allowed them to do so.” In this regard, Somivak stated that family doctors “have specific training”, so they do not think it is “appropriate to refer to general practitioners and family doctors as if they were equal”, considering that this shows “ignorance” of the general practitioner’s specializations. Doctors are different.

Sumefac stated that it was “not realistic” for family doctors to refer all users who “experience distress” related to everyday situations to psychiatrists. For professionals, the “aggravating factor” in Katz’s statements is that a large proportion of these users are “at-risk populations” and that professionals must take responsibility for a wide range of situations, including family and potentially existing community resources.

Furthermore, “due to the difficulty of accessing psychiatry” at ASSE due to “long waiting lists for all ages,” family medicine, along with other professionals in the territory, “takes care of and monitors many patients where psychiatric evaluation is needed,” He said.

Finally, Somivak stated that mental health care “is not only the responsibility of doctors” and that a wide variety of other professionals, such as psychologists, educational psychologists, social workers, nurses, among others, “are essential when it comes to a comprehensive analysis and effective approach.” , despite the absence of these resources “in the majority of regions.”

The statement concluded that “those of us who face this reality on a daily basis realize that underestimating and ignoring a serious problem by the authorities is dangerous” and “it cannot be solved with this extreme simplification.”