"The Basaglia law remains revolutionary" but today "the country has changed and needs a new organization of mental health services". And above all it needs resources, today below 3% of the health fund, and investments in human capital because "the shortage of personnel is dramatic and risks collapsing the entire public system". This is the alarm that comes from the Italian Society of Psychiatry on the forty-fifth anniversary of Law 180 which, in 1978, led to the closure of asylums.
Social changes, new mental illnesses, the consequences of the pandemic, the lack of staff, the overload of the Rems and, as highlighted by the murder of Barbara Capovani, psychiatrist in Pisa, the growing problem of operator safety: "all this requires updates", explains the president of Sip, Emi Bondi.
"Today - he underlines - the users who turn to public services have changed. Only 20-25% have psychotic and bipolar, depressive or anxiety disorders, while personality disorders, drug use and neurodevelopmental disorders such as ADHD and autism have increased".
At the same time, "the huge increase in referrals to offenders' psychiatric services is shifting the unresolved problems" of prisons to REMS and other mental health department facilities. Psychiatry, "defenseless, is forced to deal with those who cannot abide by the rules of coexistence": "there are hundreds of reports of violent facts every day, but thousands are those not reported due to the impossibility of intervention and response even by the organs in charge".
For this, "huge investments are needed in mental health, to fill the shortage of staff at all levels. A stable adjustment of funds of no less than 8-9% of the health fund is essential, as in other European countries. Today we are below 3%". Otherwise it will be impossible to guarantee the service to patients but also the safety of operators "both within the structures and in the emergency room".