Italy "among the last in Europe" for mental health. Despite an estimated increase in the 30% of diagnoses of depression and other mental pathologies caused by two years of pandemic, especially among young people and students, "zero investments" are indicated within the PNRR while by 2025, in two years, there will be a shortage of another 1,000 psychiatrists, between retirements and resignations. This is the alarm raised by ten scientific societies of Italian psychiatry, from which comes the "urgent" request to establish a dedicated National Agency.
We are moving towards "the impossibility of guaranteeing minimum services in a sector that was already on its knees well before the pandemic, with a lack of investments, a dramatic shortage of doctors and now also dealing with an increase in diagnoses for the pandemic", warn the scientific societies in a meeting organized by Italian Society of NeuroPsychoPharmacology (SINPF).
To confirm Italy among the last in Europe for mental health, investments, which should have grown at least up to the 5% of the national health fund, to reach the objective of 10% indicated at the EU level for high-income countries, they note, they instead "slumped from the already miserable 3.5% of 2018 to 2.75% of 2020. Which was followed by an increasing number of post-pandemic diagnoses."
It means that the 728 thousand citizens treated in Mental Health Departments in 2020 (which went from 183 to 141 from 2015 to 2020) have certainly increased in 2021-22 even if not registered or not yet identified. Added to all this is the flight of staff, both medical and nursing, from departments that have already been understaffed for years. So much so that in 2025, the companies warn, there will be a shortage of another 1,000 psychiatrists due to retirements and resignations. Finally, regional differences remain to complicate the situation.
Despite some weak signals (in the Budget Law and in the guidelines on the DSM) and funding from the EU Commission, "among the resources allocated by the PNRR to health, we do not see a single euro allocated to mental health". In this context therefore comes an appeal, launched in recent days by the SINPF and ten other scientific societies in the sector, including the Italian Society of Psychiatry, Child and Adolescent Neuropsychiatry, Addiction Psychiatry and the Italian Federation of Operators of the Departments and Services of Addiction (FeDerSerD) for the creation of a National Agency for Mental Health, which "will have to start from scratch to put Italy in a position to balance the accounts with Europe and to restore dignity to those who suffer and to those who work in this sector which is so strategic for Italian society and the economy".
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