Psychiatric Services and Teaching during the Covid-19 Pandemic in Romania

The Covid-19 pandemic has been declared in Romania on the 16th March 2020.The medical system reacted promptly: chronic patients had to be discharged within 48 h and further scheduled admittances were postponed, adequate epidemiological measures and circuits were organized. Anxiety, insomnia, frustration, binge eating, domestic violence were reported. The majority respected the general advises but soon, persons selected their information sources rather from social media, being victims of the infodemia and peculiar conspirationist theories. A new disorder has been described: coronaphobia. The psychiatric hospitals and outpatient settings had to reduce or innactivate their activity, switch as much as possible to TelePsychiatry. Psychiatry admittances were: onsets of psychosis, relapses of schizophrenia and alcohol, other psychoactive substances abuses, intoxications, and withdrawal states. Later, there were depressions, bipolar disorders, suicide attempts, self-harm in borderline disorder, dementia and delirium. Due to the closure of outpatient units for several months, patients visited the Emergency rooms. Personnel experienced burnout and new psychiatric pathology developed in the aftermath of Covid-19 infection. A big relief occurred with the initial vaccination of the medical staff and seniors, chronically ill persons, psychiatric patients being again left behind. Medical teaching shifted entirely to online and in 2021 the hybrid teaching system has been employed

Labor Integration with Persons with Disabilities in Public Institutions in Romania

This research aims to investigate the extent to which the legislation aimed to improve and support the labor reinsertion of persons with disabilities is implemented by public institutions. The results suggest that the law provisions concerning labor reinsertion of persons with disabilities are followed to a lower extent than might be expected. Approximately 7% of the organizations that answered this survey and have more than 50 employees do not implement any of the provisions of the law, therefore having no employed persons with disabilities, not paying the contributions to the state budget, and without contracting of services from the protected workplaces. The other institutions employ fewer persons with disabilities than they should do (about 1% comparing to the 4% required by the law). Almost half of the public institutions prefer to use the second option provided by the law, namely to pay the contribution to the state budget instead of hiring persons with disabilities. Additional research is needed to extend this exploratory investigation.</p

Stigma socială și impactul ei asupra încadrării în muncă a bolnavilor cu afecțiuni psihice

Mental illness represents an important component of the expenses in the public health system, due to increased direct and indirect costs. Current study investigates perception of stigma and discrimination associated to persons with mental illness, and differences in unemployment among inpatients in a mental health hospital in Cluj Napoca. Results indicate that unemployment rate among inpatients are three times higher than national unemployment rate at the time of the investigation (2001). Although current legislative framework provides the basis for developing social reinsertion programs for persons with mental illness in a context that supports a person-centered approach, there are only timid attempts to develop such programs.</p

The Provision of Psychiatric Care in Romania – Need for Change or Change of Needs?

The reform of the mental health systemin Europe takes place under the umbrella ofdeinstitutionalization, development of alternativecommunity services, integration of health servicesand integration with social services (Beckerand Vázquez-Barquero, 2001). Current articlediscusses the reform of the mental health systemin Romania by using the results of two studies.The goal was to draw an overview of the reformprocesses in Romania in the last few years byanalysing in parallel the actual status of mentalhealth inpatient and community services. One studywas conducted in 2007-2008 where a diagnosis ofpsychiatric hospitals and psychiatric inpatient unitsin general hospitals took place. The second studyconducted in 2006 addressed the developmentof community mental health services. The resultsshow that developing a strategic approach forchange at system level is most urgently needed.This should be characterised by a clear vision atdecision making level, by coupling of responsibilitiesfor reform with the resources needed to conductchange, and by cooperation among the involvedinstitutional stakeholders.</p