Inauguration of the First Virtual Course Management Mental Health Services

Innauguración del Primer Curso Virtual de Gestión de Servicios de Salud Mental

On 4 September, saw the inauguration of the 1st Virtual Course Management Mental Health Services. This event was attended, besides his students, Dr. Joaquin Molina, PAHO / WHO Representative of Panama, Dr. Jose Luis Di Fabio, Manager of HRT, Dr. Jorge Rodriguez, regional program coordinator of Mental Health , Dr. Jose Baudilio Jardines, Coordinator of the Virtual Campus of Public Health, Dr. Akwatu Khendi of CAMH, Canada, Dr. Leonardo Mendoza, Nicaragua UNAN-Vice Chancellor, Dr. Ricardo Goti, INSAM-Panama and Dr . Víctor Aparicio, Main Course Coordinator and advisor to PAHO / WHO Panama

The opening remarks were made by the Representative of PAHO / WHO Dr. Joaquin Molina Panama: "PAHO / WHO is committed to cooperate with countries to implement a Community in Mental Health Care with emphasis on Primary Care , training of professionals in mental health is a priority strategy, on the other hand the creation of the Virtual Campus of Public Health at PAHO opens the possibility of extending training in a flexible, adequate, efficient, and sustainable in this context is planned this First Virtual Course Management Mental Health Services aimed at professionals from public health services, aiming to improve skills in managing health services with community mental vision based on primary health care and emphasis on human rights. "

The main objective of this course is for students to complete it will improve its ability to: analyze the reality of mental health of their contexts and prioritize the relevant information for decision making, develop a plan of mental health locally, organizing services mental health with a community focus, designing the information system in mental health funding base to generate the plan and design a system of evaluation and quality control. The documents used for the completion of the course is mainly based on documents generated by PAHO / WHO.

This course includes the participation of 19 students and 3 tutors, Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama. The course is sponsored by: Organizacidn Pan American Health Organization (PAHO)-World Health Organization (WHO), Center for Addiction and Mental Health CAMH (Canada), National Institute of Mental Health of Panama (INSAM), Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Nicaragua (UNAN).

The course length will be 120 hours and will face one weeks in Panama.