Česky
AKESO Sotiria Zavalianise, one of the most important private healthcare holdings in the Czech Republic, inaugurated the new Beroun Mental Rehabilitation Centre on the premises of the Beroun Rehabilitation Hospital.
AKESO invested CZK 1.2 billion in the construction of the new psychiatric hospital. It is a five-storey building with an area of 25,000 square metres, with 300 employees in full operation and a total of 230 beds in a maximum of double rooms, including beds for closed regime, for children and adolescents and beds in superior suites, as well as outpatient clinics, day-care centres and an acute reception with round-the-clock operation. Construction has been ongoing since 2018.
The new psychiatric hospital is coming into operation gradually. "We have already approached colleagues in the region with the offer that they can refer their patients with anxiety-depressive symptoms to our first inpatient specialised therapy programme, which will start during July. One twenty-bed ward will be opened for it. The first runs of the therapeutic programme will take place and the provision of acute services will gradually be offered. We want to get to the cooperation with the ambulance service in a continuous mode during November," described Martin Hollý, M.D., MBA, deputy for mental health at the Mental Rehabilitation Centre. After this phase, further expansion of the center's services may run into staffing shortages throughout Czech psychiatry. "At the end of this year, we will be at two-thirds of our total capacity," Hollý says.
Politicians have praised the contribution of the new centre to the region and the Czech Republic
The grand opening ceremony of the Mental Rehabilitation Centre was attended by personalities from Czech psychiatry and other branches of medicine, as well as managers from various medical institutions and health insurance companies. " Mental health care has long been one of the weaker parts of the Czech health care system. Although the reform of psychiatric care is underway, we are still struggling, for example, with insufficient capacity of the clinics. We have to wait a long time, even several months, to meet an expert. We are only slowly succeeding in expanding modern types of care," Fiala said. The prime minister reminded that mental illnesses are on the rise, among other things, due to the coronavirus epidemic and anti-epidemic measures; in the future, the demand for psychiatric care will continue to grow only because of the ageing population. "So we have a growing problem. The state is responding, but also the private sector. New workplaces are being created, and I am pleased about that. A completely unique case is the Mental Rehabilitation Centre in Beroun; it will be one of the most advanced workplaces of its kind in Central Europe. Mr. Sotirios Zavalianis and his holding AKESO deserve thanks for having managed to complete this project despite all the problems," said the Prime Minister and wished the centre to help many patients and to be a place where it is a pleasure to work.
Health Minister Vlastimil Válek (TOP 09) stressed that health care is not divided according to who is the founder, but according to the quality and availability of care. He promised that when announcing subsidy calls from European funds, the Ministry of Health will not limit beneficiaries according to the type of founder or owner. "Mental health is a priority not just for this government but for all governments. Without mental health, other aspects of quality of life are not as important. I am confident that this health facility will be of high quality, not only because of the way it looks, but especially because of the staff behind it," said Minister Válek. "The Central Bohemian Region has lacked such a facility. It is in the spirit of psychiatry reform that this facility is part of a hospital and that it will operate acute psychiatric beds, which are in short supply. It also has very good staffing and strong support from at least some members of the Psychiatric Society Committee," the minister later described the importance of the new centre from a national perspective. "I am glad that such a facility is being established, and it is a model for other facilities," Válek added.
The investment in the construction of the Mental Rehabilitation Centre is exceptional in terms of its size within the health care system of the Central Bohemian Region, noted Governor Petra Pecková (STAN).
Jan Skopeček, an ODS deputy and former councillor of the Central Bohemian Region, noted that he perceived the establishment of the Mental Rehabilitation Centre in Beroun within a private holding as a confirmation that the privatisation of some regional hospitals was the right step. Martin Kupka, Minister of Transport and Deputy Chairman of the ODS, who used to be a representative of the Central Bohemian Region, also recalled how the Beroun hospital looked before privatisation. "I experienced that the bare existence of this hospital was fought for. What we see here today is the success of a steadfast man who decided to follow through with his vision," Kupka praised the work of S. Zavalianis.
Prague Mayor and MP doc. Bohuslav Svoboda described the development of the Beroun hospital, which was previously in disrepair, as a small miracle. He said Prague is discussing how to adapt to the new psychiatric capacities in the health sector. The mayor appreciated the above-standard environment, which he said is not an end in itself for a medical facility. "If the environment in which you are treated is this beautiful, the recovery goes faster, one has the desire to fight for one's health," said Associate Professor Svoboda.
Modern equipment and limiting staff capacity
The building is equipped with rooms for music therapy, art therapy, drama therapy, a cinema room with a stage. Or also for culinary or nutritional therapy, i.e. an equipped kitchen where the benefits of joint meaningful activity and occupational therapy are combined with education in healthy eating and affordable healthy cooking. The hospital also offers virtual reality therapy for patients with phobias - for different phobias, it has programs of controlled exposure to the factor that triggers their pathological fear, with the possibility of adjusting the intensity of the experience. Circadian lighting has been installed throughout the facility, with the colour of the light replicating the natural rhythm of the day; in addition, there is a phototherapy room where a half-hour session will take place each morning under biodynamic morning lighting.
Patients will also have facilities for sports activities, namely a fitness room and a swimming pool with sauna, and an adjacent park is being built. Patients on the closed ward will have access to an outdoor terrace. The security of the building is unobtrusive, without bars, with safety glass and mirrors.
"The key is that the care a patient receives here is comprehensive. So the patient will not only have pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy, but also a range of other activities. All these parts need to be linked and complement each other. This is often lacking in today's care. The aim of the centre is to piece together care so that each part makes sense in the patient's story. Specifically, this means that the program will be full-day and the patient will have group therapy, follow-up programs, and then individual therapy as needed. But unlike usual care, we want the program to be designed specifically for a particular problem. The care in the CDR will be followed by long-term care for the patient in inpatient, outpatient and outreach care," says Professor Ján Praško, who is behind the creation of the care plan of the Centre for Mental Rehabilitation.
The aim of the holding company is to build an excellent network of regional services that provides comprehensive care for people living with or at risk of developing mental illness, while also providing services of supra-regional importance in the form of psychotherapy programmes for patients who do not have access to appropriate specialist services
For the twenty acute beds that are currently being opened, the Beroun centre has already negotiated contracts with health insurance companies, which welcome the creation of capacity for paediatric patients in particular. "At the moment, the openness with health insurance companies is greater than our staff capacity," Hollý said.
According to Hollý, the centre is discussing cooperation with medical schools and medical faculties and would like to get accreditation for specialised training of doctors next year. This is crucial for the hospital's sustainable staffing situation.
At the moment, those interested in working for the Beroun centre are reportedly applying themselves. "Most of the medical staff who are coming to us are coming for this project, although we are not doing a big recruitment campaign yet. It is interesting for them that something like this is being created here in the region, and also the team that is being formed here. Last but not least, the construction itself is interesting. Regional accessibility is important for employees, but we don't just have people from the surrounding area, we also have people from the other side of the country. We help them arrange housing. We are also arranging a shuttle service from Prague to make access to our facility easier," says Hollý.
Read the full article on Medical Tribune.
Source: Medical Tribune website, Adéla Čabanová, June 27, 2023
