World Mental Health Day is on October 10th. However, in Costa Rica the celebration is affected by mental disorders such as depression and suicidal thoughts.
Just in the first half of 2016, authorities reported to have treated more than 23,000 episodes of depression and 578 cases of suicides attempts, according to data from the Department of Health Supervision.
Virginia Sandoval, coordinator of Mental Health of the Costa Rican Social Security Fund (CCSS), said that there are neither statistics nor an epidemiological study in the country that determine how the population is affected by mental disorders or how expensive it is for the Fund to deal with the cases. At the moment they are using just global parameters.
But Sandoval also stated that the Fund is working hard on this issue. The woman explained that the country should have at least 7 psychiatric services in regional hospitals, but it only has one located in Limón. Thus, a patient in any other rural part of the country must travel to San José for care.
Data from the Health Ministry shows that mental health care absorbs 2% of the Health budget and an additional 2% was assigned. Annually, about 48 billion Colones are intended for the prevention and monitoring of these disorders.