Desinstitucionalização e atenção comunitária: inovações e desafios da reforma psiquiátrica brasileira
The Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) and the Gulbenkian Global Mental Health Platform organized an international seminar to discuss the innovations and challenges of the Brazilian Psychiatric Reform. The seminar was held on the 23rd, 24th and 25th March, 2015, in Rio de Janeiro, with the active collaboration of the World Health Organization, the Pan American Health Organization and the Ministry of Health of Brazil.
Beginning in the 1980s, the process of shifting from hospital to community-based care in Brazil has been recognized as an exemplary experience. The main objective of the Brazilian psychiatric reform has been the extension of citizenship rights to people with mental problems, especially those forced to undergo extensive confinements in psychiatric hospitals. Deinstitutionalization has been a major goal of this process, understood not only as the removal of users from hospitals, but also as the creation of effective conditions for continuous and qualified community care for all those in need of attention and treatment. The Brazilian reform process is still undergoing substantial advances, and the purpose of this seminar was to discuss its innovations and challenges.