Doctors plead for disabled children’s integration

The doctors plead for the integration of disabled children in families and society, as well as for few specialised institutions, which should function only for the seriously sick children, and for more small community institutions. This opinion was shared on Friday by a group of doctors from the Premature Intervention Centre “Voinicelul” in Chisinau, at a seminar attended by journalists, held under the Project “Improvement of perception of mental health problems and their approach in media”, financed by Soros Foundation and Moldova Health Communication Network. Director of “Voinicelul” Centre Ion Puiu stated he welcomes the National Programme regarding mental health for 2007-2011, recently approved by the Government. The programme includes opening several community mental health centres in the next five years. In this regard, the state budget will allocate half billion lei. As Puiu says, these institutions should become complex centres treating both adults and children, even from the first day of birth, because the prevention and early intervention can diminish the negative consequences for children and families, as well as society’s costs for mental health services. Executive director of the Centre Ala Cojocaru stated the child’s mental health can not be considered separately from the adult’s mental health. “If the Government and Ministry of Health promote strategies for reorganising the mental health system, they must do that not only in favour of adult patients, as the settlement of the problems in the childhood period is the most efficient and it is a method for preventing and reducing the mental health problems among adults”, Cojocaru said. The cited source mentioned that, though “Voinicelul” is a small centre, already for 4 years, the doctors are being actively involved in solving children’s mental health problems and promote especially the principle of deinstitutionalising the disabled children, denying the old strategies which are not suitable for solving the children’s mental health problems, especially those that focus on psycho-pharmacologic therapy. Ion Puiu also said that the Centre he leads is functioning now due to the support of international donors and provides free of charge services to patients, but it is very small (120 places) and does not comply with the necessities of all disabled children in the country. As Puiu reports, about 15,000 disabled children are registered in Moldova at present. At the same time, the statistics reveal that out of 150000 disabled people, 10% are children. Although doctors mention that the statistics in Moldova are not different from those in the other countries, besides the lack of information of families with such children and besides the society’s reticence about the disabled persons, the most of population lacks financial means or financial support on the part of the state.