translated from Spanish: Announce 310% increase in mental health budget

The Undersecretary of Public Health, Paula Daza, together with the director of the Program Chooses to Live Healthy, Daniela Godoy, today released details of the fate of the budget increase for mental health of the Ministry of Health.The budget increase compared to the previous year’s expansion corresponds to 310%, which is equivalent to 18.3 billion pesos, which will be invested “in strengthening the human resource of mental health care for adolescent children with psychosocial vulnerability and in children, adolescents and young people in the Sename, which will benefit nearly 50,869 children and adolescents,” he said Daza.La undersecretary added that resources will also enable increased human resources for mental health care in Primary Care , including the incorporation of the suicide attempt as a Mandatory Notification event, as well as increasing the offer of Outpatient Specialty Care in Community Mental Health Centers, among other measures. The authority reported that “this is in addition to the Remote Brief Psychological Intervention Program, which allows interaction between the user and a mental health professional through video call, which makes care more personalized. This program considers a pre-evaluation and, if required, a follow-up of four sessions, scheduled through Digital Hospital.” For his part, the Undersecretary of Healthcare Networks, Alberto Dougnac, assured that “the implementation of this new video call consultation tool added by the Digital Hospital is an element that goes to the benefit of the population in considering a more personalized attention thanks to the interaction between the user and the professional”.” The significant increase in mental health consultations in recent months has been a reflection and an important signal that determined to move in this direction and give more and more tools to citizens to reduce gaps in access to consultations,” he said. The measures announced are part of the Healthy Programme, an initiative created by the Government under the COVID-19 pandemic. In this regard, Daza emphasized that since its inception, nearly 120,000 consultations have been attended through Hospital Digital and invited the population to access the healthy www.gob.cl/saludablemente page, where there is useful and helpful information for different groups and people.” It was hard work, done by the Bureau Healthily, when we are going to be one year old in the first case of coronavirus in the country. A difficult year that has had an impact on people’s mental health and that is why on 1 June the President of the Republic announced the program Healthily and the start of this work table that for 3 months developed the program released today,” he complemented. In turn, Daniela Godoy reported on the launch of the Guide to Recommendations for Emotional Welfare and Mental Health, where recommendations will be found and help can be sought if required through different platforms such as Digital Hospital, Responsive Health, Major Fono, Fono Childhood and Fono Drugs.” Mental health is as important as physical health, which is why this is a support guide for families and it has general recommendations, phones for support, specific recommendations for each stage of the Step-by-Step Plan and finally recommendations for priority mental health groups such as children and adolescents, as well as women,” Godoy said.

Original source in Spanish