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Psychiatrists from Serbia in Job Shadowing Visit
to Trieste's DSM
In the follow-up of its work on the improvement of
the situation of psychiatric hospitals and the position of patients
and staffs alike, the Helsinki Committee organized – in the second
year of the project „Civil Society Campaign for Efficient Protection
of Persons with Mental Disorders“ – a study tour to Trieste Mental
Health Services /DSM/ for another four psychiatrist from Serbia.
This time, from May 31 till June 5, 2015 in
cooperation with its Italian partners the Committee organized a job
shadowing tour for a group consisting of psychiatrists from special
psychiatrist hospitals in Novi Kneževac and Vršac, the Mental Health
Counseling Center in Kragujevac, and the Psychiatric Ward of the
Sombor General Hospital that will be assisting the local medical
center in providing better healthcare to psychiatric patients.
During a five-day workweek the four psychiatrists
had the opportunity to closely observe daily work of their mentor
and colleague from the Mental Health Center Barcola in Trieste, and
gain insight into methods of community-based treatment.
The group also observed the manner in which
Trieste's four mental health services – Barcola, Gambini, Maddalena
and Domio – and the local Emergency Department were operating. The
four psychiatrists were watching regular treatments provided to
patients, talked to some of them, learned in detail about
pharmacological approaches to the treatment of some specific
disorders, and toured all the segments of Trieste's services for
persons with mental disorders.
Apart from services' organizational functioning,
psychiatrists from Serbia gained insights into the work of other
medical officers and auxiliary staff who demonstrated to them
practical advantages of community-based care and philosophy behind
it.
They notably benefited from the opportunity of
accompanying their mentor to home visits and safe houses providing
dignified lives to persons with gravest psychiatric disorders and
mental disabilities.
Unexpectedly, the group also attended the
preparations for admission of two forensic patients transferred from
prisons to one of Trieste's mental health services – the facility in
Aurisina.
The project focuses on the four above-mentioned
institutions in Serbia since they – this way or another, and at
different levels of protection – stand for precursors of Serbia's
new approach to treatment and care of persons with mental disorders.
This summer special psychiatric hospitals in Novi
Kneževac and Vršac are starting mental health services in Kikinda
and Vršac and thus actually launching the process of
deinstitutionalization and community-based care. Though functioning
as a primary healthcare service, the Kragujevac Mental Health
Counseling Center will be turned into Serbia's third mental health
service by the end of 2015. As for the Sombor Medical Center it has
been developing a different model given that it has no specialized
psychiatric department and, therefore, has to lean on such
department of the town's general hospital.
The study tour to Trieste and the job shadowing
are segments of a composite project the Committee has been
implementing with the assistance of the Norwegian Embassy in
Belgrade.
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