The abandonment of youth and their mental health

I treated Aydan in the emergency room a few weeks ago and despite how complex it is to face someone who is tremendously vulnerable, defensive, to the point of being aggressive, I was struck by the radical and momentary change he had when I paid attention to him. Entering the night shift, one of the assistants at the residence where he should have been receiving care, played music and videos, laughed and sang. A young man of 14 years, a boy.

His family denounces the violations and abandonment of the State and its institutions. There is no care, no health, no education. He was registered in a residence, but in each escape from the emergency service, the ICU or the pediatric ICU (due to the lack of beds in child and adolescent psychiatry, a specialized unit for his care), he was found by his mother in a rural area, on the street. I remember the cold I felt when I heard that due to alleged misfortune they were looking for Aydan Solis. For his part, the Altair residence continued to receive the subsidy for the minor, even though he was not there.

I do not deny in any case that attacking health workers is aberrant. But what life perspective is offered to youth today? If the same “Better Childhood” workers denounce and are mobilizing for the closure of residences, further weakening this service that works based on foundations and tenders. Subcontracting and precarious care only lead to social degradation.

While the Government wants to move forward with a fast track legislative security, it abandons basic services such as health, education and child care. The right, for its part, licks its mustaches, and once again talks about the death penalty or lowering the age of imputability.

But there are conclusions that need to be reviewed; the death penalty in history has proven to provide no solution. And personally, it seems to me nothing more than a bloodthirsty way of sweeping problems under the rug and I refuse to let Aydan, and thousands of other vulnerable young people, be swept under the rug.

In its 2023 annual report on Girls, Boys and Adolescents in the care of the State, the Office of the Ombudsman for Children reports that among the serious violations is mental health, where “the difficulties are manifested in the lack of timely access to psychological care.” or outpatient psychiatric; poor quality and relevance of the care received; long waiting lists to access specialized outpatient programs; disparity in admission and discharge criteria for hospitalizations in short-stay psychiatric units; lack of follow-up and continuity of post-hospitalization care and attention; overmedication of children and adolescents, and lack of participation and knowledge, on their part, of their diagnoses and treatment plans, among others.”

Aydan’s family demands a hospitalization quota to adequately receive his treatment and evaluate the response in a medium-stay center, this is longer than most serious mental health cases that require hospitalization, such as suicide attempts, episodes of hypomania or severe depressives; but shorter than those people with serious organic damage who, in many cases, without support networks, are not in a position to care for themselves.

In a region as rich as Antofagasta, and with such high numbers of mental health problems, which have been proliferating in recent post-pandemic years, it seems like a joke not to find more complex devices to care for these cases, but the abandonment of Public health is such and authorities of the Health Service and the Regional Hospital respond with agreements with Private Clinics, where the few resources allocated are drained.

We health workers have already denounced this repeatedly, in this case the family of a user does so. The silence of the unions, or their trust in work tables is criminal and ends up sustaining this continuous violation, to the care and guarantee of health for youth first, and to the working conditions of those of us who try to support it, second. Enough of settling for crumbs, we have to organize ourselves.