'Young people need psychosocial support'

Burhan Baran said that young people, who are the future of society, need special psychosocial support, and that the appointment of psychiatrists in Xanthi Mental Health Center to Xanthi State Hospital caused the Mental Health Center to be unable to provide services.

Burhan Baran summed up the following in his speech in the parliament:

“As a specialist who has the opportunity to closely observe psychiatric problems due to my field, I would like to share with you that unfortunately I have witnessed a dramatic increase in daily problems in this field.

Unfortunately, this high increase in psychiatric cases causes patients to go outside the geographical boundaries of the region they live in for treatment, while this situation puts patients very hard.

3 psychiatrists working at the Xanthi Mental Health Center were assigned to the Xanthi State Hospital in order to eliminate the existing deficiencies. Thus, the Xanthi Mental Health Center cannot serve. While the Xanthi Mental Health Center used to do psychometric assessments to measure intelligence, now patients have to apply to the Alexandroupolis State hospital or the public hospitals in Thessaloniki.

Appointment of psychiatry specialists from Xanthi and Komotini state hospitals to the psychiatry department of Aleksandrupolis state hospital, in order for seizures to occur due to the lack of specialist physicians, complicates the work of the doctors in the other two hospitals.

We are witnessing more and more often that young people with severe psychotic disorders, due to the pressure they are exposed to, engage in self-harming behaviors and suicide attempts.

For all these reasons, our young people, who are the future of this society, need special psychosocial support.

The budget allocated by the New Democracy Government for Mental Health represents only about 5% of its total expenditure on health. As a result, this rate is an indication that mental health is unfortunately not in the required position in our country.”