The Mental Hospital of Antioquia María Upegui (Homo) declared this Sunday the hospital contingency due to the high demand for mental health services in the department.
In a statement, Homo assured that “it has been going through a collapse of emergency services and hospitalization with overcrowding that exceeds the available resources.
In this sense, the entity opened 18 emergency beds, 100 new psychiatric beds for adults and children and activated the use of expansion areas, among other measures to deal with the situation.
“We request the public and private hospital network of the Department join forces to coordinate the care of users and their families in conditions of quality and timeliness, exhausting the procedures defined in the health system,” the Hospital said in a statement.
Along the same lines, the Government of Antioquia called on public and private hospitals to strengthen a support network to attend to overdemand in emergency services and hospitalization for mental health problems derived from the pandemic.
It is estimated that only in the youngest population of the department demand for mental health care increased by regarding 20%following the pandemic.
Last year, the Hospital carried out 153 consultations every day, reaching 55,200 a year.
Finally, in the statement, Homo recognized the assistance and administrative staff for all the commitment and dedication in the care of users and their families.
