Reflections on the 3rd Catalan Congress on Mental Health

Antonio Vaquerizo i Cubero
Montserrat Martínez Gobern
Mental health nurses

“Mental Health Needs and Responses: The Construction of Care”
CAROLINA MELÉNDEZ MEMORIAL

February 23, 24, and 25, 2006.

2006, what a year!!!

For some an unforgettable year, for Barça fans even more so. It was the year of the 2nd Champions League, the final played at Stade de France In Paris, with a «great team,» Eto'o, Ronaldinho, Deco, and a young Messi, among others. A good team that achieved a great result.

With the team, all of us also managed that offer that the Foundation, with Pep Clusa as president, made to COIB as a patron member, the co-organization of the 3rd Congress. It was welcomed by those in charge of the Governing Board: the president Mariona Creus, and the mental health representative Joan Lopez, and Paco Checa, a nurse already linked to the Foundation, who extended the proposal to the nursing community.

For us, mental health nurses, younger by 14 years and with little knowledge of the Foundation, it turned out to be a heartwarming experience. We were able to immerse ourselves in a different organizational dynamic for a conference, an essence of the Foundation, through the preliminary group work sessions, to work on sections related to the central theme of the congress. In the case of this 3rd one: The subject and their construction (GT1), Services, organizations, and professionals (GT2), and The construction of care (GT3), in order to design what was its definitive program.

It was a congress that received a very good response in terms of attendance, with a total of 720 registered participants.

The congress began with the inaugural conference in the Saló de Cent of the City Hall, given by Eyad El Sarraj, a psychiatrist. President of the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme (Palestine) that moved us, with the narration of the situation of their people and showed us that it is possible to create spaces for health for people based on respect for human rights.

The presence of speakers and participants at the tables from other disciplines and non-healthcare fields offered a broad, enriching, and complementary perspective that facilitated a comprehensive view of the topic and highlighted the importance of transdisciplinary and networked work: Professor of Philosophy Josep Ma Terricabras, urban planner and architect Itziar González Virós, anthropologist Angel Martínez, and Professor of Linguistics Sebastià Serrano were among the invited guests.

Emiliano Galende, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst from the University of Lanús (Buenos Aires), highlighted the paradigm shift in psychiatry towards mental health in his presentation.

During the congress we had presentations from: the Foundation's Healthcare Ethics Committee, established in 2003 and recently accredited, and also from the Association

Mental Health Nursing Catalan Association -ASCISAM- with whom synergies have been maintained over these years.

The Memorial will be dedicated to nurse Carolina Meléndez, whose role in a historic moment of fostering a sense of identity for the nursing collective was highlighted, among other things.

At the closing, Àngels Vives described the congress as exciting, vibrant, and warm, encompassing a long list of ideas such as: the subject, construction, deconstruction, teams, networks, knots as places of difficulty and close connection, organizations and institutions as containers for our work. Multiculturalism, immigration, national plurality, transdisciplinarity, exposure to the different, the authority of nursing's role. A gift that helps us avoid getting stuck in old ideas and especially old practices.

In short, good teamwork that achieved a good prize.