Caregivers: The burden of Mexican families.

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Caregivers The burden of Mexican families.

• Gabriela Cámara
• Graciela Cámara
• Voz Pro Salud Mental

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Factors to deal with

• Families has to deal with different factors as
  emotional, economical, health services and
  stigma, when one of their members gets mentally
  ill.
• Emotional. To deal with mourning, the love one
  has change in behavior and conducts, symptoms has
  made him loose things and gain others. Loose
  dreams, plans and expectations for a future.They
  have to adjust to a new family psychodynamics.

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Psychiatrist services

• The Mexican health sector is divided in four
• Social Security for private business employees
• ISSSTE for government employees
• Public attention for general population.
• Popular social security
• Private health care
• Other health government institutions for especial
  departments as the army and the navy.

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Psychiatrist services

• We have around 2,600 psychiatrist, only 2.7 per
  100,000 habitants.
• 9 out of 32 states do not have psychiatrist
  services.
• Private or government medical insurances do not
  cover mental illness.
• We nearly dont have rehabilitation programs.
• Medication is not always available.
• Psychiatric drugs are too expensive.

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Psychiatrist services

• From the health budget we just spend 1 to mental
  health, the OMS advices at least 10.
• We are placed in one of the latest place at
  psychiatrist services in the world.
• More than 15 millions Mexican need their
  services.

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Stigma

• The most important institution for mental health
  in Mexico city are in just one zone, called
  Tlalpan.
• Health workers do not know about mental illness,
  often they refuse to give services to someone
  with mental illness.
• Mexican have a wrong idea about a mentally ill
  person and their families, tending to blame them.

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Families face up a very difficult situation

• Absence of specialists and diagnosis.
• The fact that the medicine for mental illness
  treatment is not in the basic drug chart of
  public health institutions.
• Absence of regulation
• Not enough knowledge of mental illness at schools
  (neither teachers, psychologists nor doctors).
• Social stigma.

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VOZ PRO SALUD MENTAL

• As family members that had to face up with all
  this burden, we founded VPSM since 2001.
• We are a net of NGO in Mexico, that found support
  with the Family To Family program by NAMI and
  support groups.
• We have giving the course to more than 800
  hundreds families.

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VPSM Services

• We had 84,000 visits into our home page.
• We have 531 members into the page.
• Have giving response to more than 500 email.
• Take care of daily phone calls.

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Mexican Caregivers

• 80 of the attendees to the FtF program are
  women.
• Most of them mothers, followed by sisters,
  fathers, brothers, daughters, sons, wives and
  husbands.
• One member usually gives the most to the ill
  member, sometimes resigning to their own life.

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Mexican caregivers
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Caregivers

• Most of the caregivers in Mexico are burn out
  financially, emotionally and in their health.
• Some of them have depression and other
  physical illnesses.
• Sometimes they have to stop working to look
  after the mental ill or reduce their labor
  capacity, letting aside their own lives.

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Trying to make a change

• We are working with the Federal Congress. We
  hold the first Mental Health Forum in March 2006.
• Our Minister of Health Dr. Cordova Villalobos has
  raised the budget for mental health to 1 from
  the health budget.
• He is planning to open psychiatrists center in
  all states in Mexico.
• We are giving to politicians facts about how much
  they could save giving the right treatment to
  mental ill people.

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Mental Health Forum on March 2006
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Human Rights

• We are working with the Human Rights Commission
  and with National Handicap Commission in order to
  include in Mexican law brain disorders as
  neuropsychiatry handicap.
• Even the OMS rates of living with incapacity is
  33 neuropsychiatrist, just depression represent
  12, the law do not considered it.
• The rates of contracting other diseases for a
  mentally ill are much higher, just in HIV is 44
  more and diabetis is 23.

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Seguro Popular

• We had several press conferences to express the
  need to include all mental illness into the
  Seguro Popular (popular insurance), a new project
  of our government with the objective of giving
  health care to all the population. Our message is
  that everybody has the right to receive quick
  attention, proper diagnosis and an adequate
  treatment, under the governments responsibility.

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VPSM GOALS

• Make physicians aware that parents should have
  very active role in their childrens treatment
  informed and of participating in the treatment
• Have more research in our country we need
  actualized statistics, numbers about the economic
  cost for the families, about the medications
  side effects.
• Families should have a quick attention and a
  proper diagnosis of mental illness.

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VPSM GOALS

• Doctors and paediatricians should be prepared for
  the identification of mental illness.
• To receive the medication alerts from our
  Ministry of Health and not from other sources.
• The media support to inform against stigma and to
  fight back to anti psychiatrist groups.

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VPSM GOALS

• VPSM fights for the right that every patient with
  mental or neurobiological disorder has to receive
  the best treatment available.
• Our main goal is to change the societys and the
  politicians attitude about all the issues
  concerned with mental disorders

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ental.org.mx