Mental health far away from asylums is the subject of Caminhos da Reportagem

Anyone who sees Patrícia Ruth calmly painting her pictures cannot imagine the horrors she has already suffered. Incarcerated in reformatories and asylums since childhood, she received physical punishment, restraints and even underwent electroshock. Over decades of isolation in psychiatric hospitals, she has lost her family ties and even her identity. Advances in the anti-asylum struggle in the country are the theme of the program Caminhos da Reportagem, which airs this Sunday (21), at 10 pm, on TV Brasil. He accompanies psychiatric patients who have gone through long-term hospitalizations and have returned to life outside the walls of institutions. It was with the beginning of the anti-asylum struggle in Brazil that, little by little, trajectories like Patrícia’s took on new directions. She, who was one of the patients at the former Colônia Juliano Moreira, the last asylum to be closed in Rio de Janeiro, is now a recognized plastic artist. “It changed a lot for me. Something I didn’t have and never expected to have, my house. These works I do today are my gold because I sell and exhibit abroad”, celebrates Patrícia. The civil society movement, launched in the late 1970s, criticizes traditional psychiatry methods and defends the rights of people in psychological distress. “The fight against asylums is a fight for citizenship, a fight for recognition of people with fragility, overcoming the idea that there are people with lesser value. So, everything comes into play: racism, LGBTphobia and any form of discrimination”, says Hugo Fagundes, superintendent of Mental Health in the city of Rio de Janeiro. Brasília – 19.05.2023 – Community vegetable garden at the Bispo do Rosário Museum. Photo: TV Brasil – TV Brasil With the approval of the Psychiatric Reform Law, in 2001, there was a programmed reduction of psychiatric beds in Brazil. According to the non-governmental organization (NGO) Desinstitute, the number of long-term hospitalized patients dropped from 50,000 in 2002 to less than 14,000 in 2020. Avoiding setbacks is still a challenge for anti-asylum advocates, according to the president of the Brazilian Mental Health Association, Ana Paula Guljor. Closing asylums is not synonymous with lack of care for patients and their families. Care in freedom, keeping the patient integrated into their territory of origin, their social circle, is the most effective, guarantees Guljor. Among the support mechanisms for patients, in addition to the Psychosocial Assistance Centers (CAPs) that are part of the Unified Health System (SUS), there are Therapeutic Residences, a kind of republic – for a maximum of six people – offered to graduates of psychiatric hospitals who still need some support to return to community living. The Caminhos da Reportagem team went to see the routine of one of these houses. “There are a thousand other ways of caring, of treating madness, the subject in psychic suffering”, argues Erika Pontes e Silva, director of the Nise da Silveira Municipal Health Assistance Institute. Art workshops and activities in community gardens are examples of therapies adopted in former psychiatric institutions that were remodeled. Brasília – 19.05.2023 – Instituto Nise da Silveira – art in the place of the old wards. Photo: TV Brasil – TV Brasil The program shows how places of incarceration and suffering in the past are now spaces dedicated to art and treatment with affection and freedom, such as the Bispo do Rosário Museum and the Nise da Silveira Institute, both in Rio de Janeiro . Credits Production and reporting: Clarice BassoFilm reporting: Gabriel Penchel, Gilson Machado, Marcelo Padovan, Ronaldo Parra and Sandro TebaldiTechnical assistance: Adaroan Barros, Caio Araujo and Yuri FreireProduction support: Luiz Filipe Salvador – internScreenplay: Ana Passos and Clarice BassoText editing : Ana PassosImage editing and finishing: Eric GusmãoArt: Julia Gon and Marco BravoEBC Collection Research: Aline Brettas, Erick Pinheiro, Fabio Araujo Jorge, Fernanda Buarque, Mariana Nazareth, Pedro Modesto and Thiago Guimarães TV Brazil.

Agência Brasil