Children’s Mental Health Will Always Be a Priority

When young doctor Aleidy López Trujillo walks through the city, she comes face to face with many manifestations in individuals that would well deserve an analysis from her specialty for each behavior.

She, as a Doctor of Psychiatry, possesses the tools to analyze each case, but she assures that she does not assume every person she encounters on the street as a case study. That would violate, to a certain extent, people’s privacy.

That young woman of great professionalism, restless and curious since childhood, currently works as a Doctor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, assuming a leading role in that department of the Eliseo Noel Caamaño Pediatric Hospital.

A prominence she will try to deny, because, as she assures, an excellent team of professionals works there, of which she is only one more cog.

She will defend with total conviction that a person alone will not achieve great results, at least not in her medical discipline. Many specialties and proper names intervene that contribute to the patient’s therapy.

As pillars on which she supported her training, she will always evoke teacher Teté and her grandmother Felicia, who introduced her, as a child, to the fascinating world of psychopedagogy.

That would be the seed that would begin to germinate in her early days, with such strength, until it grew robust in the doctor she is today.

Complex and difficult times sometimes stimulate the thinking brain, always eager to understand the causes of things.

And without a doubt, the ups and downs, ruptures, inequalities, and family exoduses that have marked Cuba in recent years have caused a growing demand for services of attention and care for children’s mental health.

«In our days, children are exposed to too much information that they cannot always handle.»

The specialist warns that with the abrupt changes of recent times, responsibilities and worries of adults sometimes fall on the little ones, which undermines their normal development.

Among the growing social problems treated in the Pediatric Hospital’s psychiatry department are drug addictions.

«In our contemporary times, the search for pleasure at any cost prevails, and adolescents are exposed to many substances they can access with relative ease.»

Faced with the phenomenon of addiction, a detoxification ward was created at the Matanzas health institution to attend to young people who arrive with addiction problems.

The specialist starts from the premise that it is a chronic condition, hence how complex the recovery of young people with substance use disorders becomes.

The first step, and the most decisive, will always depend on the patient’s will. Additionally, the doctor warns, family support is fundamental.

Once the young person takes that step seeking recovery, a team of specialists with proven experience will intervene to accompany them during the difficult, but never impossible, process of detoxification.

There are many social phenomena with a direct impact on the psychosocial development of children and young people that challenge the Pediatric Hospital’s team of specialists every day. From early pregnancy to exposure to situations of violence, among many others.

That is why the constant study and commitment of the multidisciplinary «team» of this department is vital — a team of which Dr. Aleidy López insists on highlighting that she is only one cog in the larger group where every specialty is indispensable.

But where everyone, from the institution’s leadership to each specialist in particular, works tirelessly for the mental health of the little ones and young people who urgently need specialized attention.