The Community Mental Health Team of Portimão and Lagoa and the Psychogerontology Unit of the Centro Hospitalar Universitário do Algarve (CHUA) already have facilities in Portimão, which were visited on Monday by the Minister of Health, during his tour of the region.
The facilities, which will soon be open, are next to Hospital de São Camilo, a unit of the Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Portimão, which owns the space. It was the Porto City Council that leased them to Misericórdia, to transfer them to CHUA, under a Cooperation Agreement, approved at a City Council meeting on January 4th of this year.
Maria do Carmo Cruz, director of the Psychiatry Service at CHUA and regional coordinator of Mental Health, highlighted, in statements to the Sul Informação, the importance of these installations, which make it possible to bring these services closer to the population.
The Municipality of Portimão, within the scope of the agreement, ensures not only the installations but also the work carried out to organize the space, as well as all the material resources and expenses inherent in the proper functioning of the equipment.
It is up to the CHUA to ensure the human resources allocated to this response and the materials necessary for rehabilitation activities and nursing procedures.
Part of the objectives of the Community Mental Health Team are «to promote the rehabilitation and reintegration of people, to develop strategies to promote mental health and disease prevention; organize an integrated program for the seriously mentally ill; evaluate and intervene in crisis situations, in addition to providing external consultations carried out by various professionals, psychiatrists, psychologists, nurses, social workers and occupational therapists, as well as psychotherapies and individual psychological support, group psychotherapy; as well as home visiting and user-centered community interventions».
The Psychogerontology Unit, for its part, will develop «strategies for the early diagnosis of dementia; ensure that users/families with an established diagnosis of dementia have access to qualified services and appropriate care tailored to their situation, as well as ensuring the provision of quality care; facilitate socio-family reintegration; train the informal/formal/extended family caregiver in strategies to care for the user with dementia, throughout the evolution of the pathology».
Another improvement visited by the Minister of Health, this time at the hospital in Portimão, is the Snoezelen Room, the first to be created in a unit of the National Health Service in the whole of the Algarve.
Ana Ventura, responsible for Social Service at CHUA, explained to the Sul Informação that this room will support physiotherapy, paediatrics, autistic children, cancer patients or stroke patients and even the employees of the Hospital Center itself. The project also involves «integrating mental health patients».
This Snoezelen Room, which is intended for multisensory stimulation, is the result of an application to the «Healthy Neighborhoods» programme, made by the CHUA Social Service in conjunction with the Elos de Esperança Association, which includes volunteers from the Portimão hospital.
«Among 700 or so applications, later reduced to 300, ours was one of the chosen», added Ana Ventura.
The project also has partnerships with CHUA, Casa do Povo and the Parish Council of São Bartolomeu de Messines, as well as CASLAS, ISMAT and the Piaget Institute.
Mental health is considered by the Government as a priority area within the scope of the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR).
Photos: Elisabete Rodrigues | Sul Informação and Filipe da Palma | CMP
Comments