Minister of Health Vladimír Lengvarský and President of the Slovak Psychiatric Society, doc. MUDr. Ľubomíra Izáková, PhD., signed a Memorandum of Cooperation this morning on the implementation of psychiatric care reform. By signing the memorandum, the participants declared a common interest in cooperation in implementing the various steps of the reform and its sustainability. The aim is to create a quality and comprehensive care system for people with mental disorders, which will lead to an increase in the quality of life of patients with psychiatric disorder, to prevent them from being excluded from society, to increase the efficiency of psychiatric care and the quality of services provided. Vladimir Lengvarsky, Minister for Health:
In the past, this health - care area has been very neglected for many years, which occurred in a time of pandemic and war. We need to change this with our reform. And if we want to have a reform of quality, one that is not done from the table, we will work intensively with experts. We do not want to make partial or minor changes, we want comprehensive and improved care for patients with mental disorders. And this care will be more humane and linked to social services and the integration of patients into the community they live in through cooperation with experts and reform.
–The partnership between the Ministry of Health and the Slovak Psychiatric Society, the organizational component of the Slovak Medical Society, means mutual exchange of information and documents, discussion of measures that affect mental health reforms, cooperation in solving conceptual issues, participation of the department's organizational departments and experts in achieving the objectives of the reform, sharing of personnel, technical and knowledge capacities, as well as involvement of other partners - patients themselves, health insurance companies, municipalities, the Board of the Government of the Slovak Republic for Mental Health, professional and non-governmental organisations involved in mental health. Ľubomíra Isaac, president of the SPS: – I am very pleased that we signed the memorandum with the Ministry today, because the Slovak Psychiatric Society has defined topics that need to be addressed urgently and cooperation between mental health professionals and the Ministry of Health is crucial in addressing them. The reform must bring about an effective, high-quality and comprehensive system of care for people with psychiatric disorders, from which the patients themselves will benefit in the first place, and with them the experts will experience positive changes. The aim is for the care system to be more coordinated and focused on achieving the highest possible quality of life and the degree of recovery of the patient, in a broader context and on improving the condition of society as a whole.
–The topics of psychiatric care reform are part of the reform of mental health care and are broad-ranging and will take several years to resolve them. Reform changes can be started immediately, however, because the reform of mental health care is part of the Recovery and Resilience Plan of the Slovak Republic and provides for the allocation of almost €45 million to:
- building psycho-social centres,
- the addition of a network of psychiatric staff,
- the establishment of specialised centres for autistic spectrum disorders,
- humanization of the department in institutional care. For example:
- the establishment of at least 38 centres for adults and children,
- the development of at least 15 psychiatric stations for adults, children and adolescents
- the establishment of at least 3 new diagnostic and intervention centres for persons with autistic spectrum disorders,
- reconstruction of at least 244 beds in constitutional psychiatric institutions in order to humanize the conditions for hospitalization
- and more.
The calls will be launched this autumn.
