(Between triage and virtuality: health/mental health community practices in times of pandemic)

Abstract

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, health institutions had to implement significant transformations in care, which resulted in substantial restrictions on practices that were carried out in person. Within this framework, some experiences managed to sustain group and community practices in the field of mental health. This paper aims to describe and analyze participatory practices developed by the community area of a mental health center in the city of Buenos Aires and its transformations during the COVID-19 pandemic, from the perspective of its professionals. This is an exploratory and descriptive study that understands health and mental health from an integral and non-normative rights perspective. Qualitative techniques are used for data collection and analysis: four interviews and a conversation were carried out, whose sample was intentional and non-probabilistic. The results present, after a brief characterization of the experience, three emerging categories that reflect moments in the institutional work process, centered on the reassignment of tasks, the transformation of group activities and the development of new strategies as an opportunity. The analysis of these categories, in articulation with the recent reform processes in mental health, allows us to conclude that the pandemic has become an analyzer of a significant validity of the biomedical model of care, that hinders the full development of community and practices in mental health. We understand that, in the current context, this can lead to an important loss of opportunities in terms of sustaining and strengthening comprehensive health strategies. Finally, we recognize the importance of sustaining these and other mental health group and community spaces that are alternatives to individualism, medicalization, and the commodification of health and life.