I am deeply thankful with God for having granted me the opportunity
and responsibility I am assuming today, together with my peers in the
Board of Directors, Doctors Jaider Barros, Francisco Cavanzo, Carlos
Filizola, Henry García, Hernán Giraldo, Ramón Lopera, Carlos López,
Mauricio Moreno, Kris Rey, Juan Carlos Rojas and Gustavo Zambrano,
to face during the current year the challenges and daily activities of the
Colombian Association of Psychiatry. I understand the work of the Presidency
as the position with the greatest responsibility since I should be
directing all efforts of the Board, now representing each of you, in order
to be able to continue with the mandates of the Assembly.
This year, 2011, we celebrate our first fifty years as an Association. The
intense activity of the last four days has led us to recall our origins, our
history and, of course, to re-evaluate our future. Yesterday morning, during
the symposium on the History of the Association, there came a moment
when I had the feeling that time had stood still. In the description given by
Dr. Cesar González, one of the main topics of the First Congress, in 1961,
included the defense of psychiatry and an active participation in political
decisions made in Colombia concerning mental health. I felt certain that if
I had been a psychiatrist fifty years ago, I would have embraced, together
with those pioneers, the ideal of associating ourselves for struggling to
attain goals so noble. It was a very curious moment during which I could
not remain silent and felt the need to whisper to the colleague next to me:
“Nothing has changed”. Up to now it has been so. The fact of being associated
grants us the force and authority to raise our voice and express
opinions concerning the human health situation in our community which
evolves within a particular historic context while limited by the political,
economical and social features of the country.

Those of us, attending the debate on mental health with the participation
of Dra. Paola Acosta - Vice-Minister of Health, Dra. Alba Pinilla
- Member of the House of Representatives, Dr. Pedro Ruiz - President of
the WPA, Dr. Rodrigo Córdoba - President of the Colombian Association
of Scientific Associations and Dr. José Del Carmen Bornacelly- President
of the Colombian Association of Psychiatry, can but feel alarmed considering
the relevance of elements at stake which prevent approaching the subject of mental health, in a country with 0.1% of the total domestic
budget allocated to this issue, a country characterized by violence, where
alcohol consumption is the sponsor of health and education, a country
trying to acknowledge the right to health Colombians should have by
means of an Act, after 200 years of Independence, a country that started
to be familiar with the term integral mental health just a year ago. Article
65 of Act 1438, states:
“Health actions should include guarantee for the full exercise of the
right Colombians have to mental health through integral attention in order
assure satisfaction of health needs and their care as part of the Healthcare
Plan and the implementation, following-up and evaluation of the national
mental health policy.”
Current condition of our profession makes us swim against the tide.
Nowadays in our history, the third object of our by-laws becomes allimportant.
i.e.: “the Association shall have critical, active and permanent
presence in any issue related to mental health, attention and care of the
mentally diseased...”.
Nowadays we are benefited by the activity developed by the Colombian
Association of Scientific Associations, of which the Colombian Association
of Psychiatry is an active member that, in turn, decisively contributes with
good acceptance in the different governmental environments.
So far, the practice of psychiatry has been limited to the attention of
people with mental diseases. In this aspect, psychiatry has produced unquestionable
achievements in the etiopathologic understanding of mental
diseases, their description and diagnosis as well as in the therapeutic field.
Such aspects of psychiatry are at risk of remaining simple theoretical references
if the application field for all this knowledge prevents their practice.
If the context within which Psychiatry is practiced continues to be amidst
unfavorable conditions, lacking an adequate application context and with
absence of promotion and care policies regarding mental health, my dear
colleagues, this would lead us nowhere else but to a state of physical and
spiritual depletion, sooner or later, the coexistence with so much suffering
and frustration would end up by extinguishing the pleasure and creativity
that must characterize our profession.

Our people are in urgent need of a deep transformation in the mental
health reality and this requires the joint efforts of many sectors and forms
of knowledge. The Colombian Association of Psychiatry, as the institution
gathering most psychiatrists in Colombia, must assume a leading role in
such transformation. As associates, I wish to invite you to be both witnesses
and participants in this responsibility, within the regions and environments
where our profession is practiced. I ask you to trustfully inquire at our offices about any concern regarding advances in mental health strategies
as well as any difficulty you may encounter in your professional activities.
Such concerns shall immediately be addressed to the Board of Directors
you have elected, and to the Association’s committees and working groups
of the Association o as to find the corresponding answers and solutions.
On the other hand, and looking now inside the Colombian Association
of Psychiatry, I would like to make emphasis upon the consideration
that the power gained by our profession in the last years shall be ever
greater if we include ourselves, in the first singular and plural person, to
contribute with our opinions and voices, as with our problems and solutions.
The Professional Committee is not conformed just by some of us;
instead it should be made by all of us. We must continue strengthening
this pillar of the Association. Sometimes just a voice is needed for all of
us to be its echo, showing that we are not alone, that we are supportive of
every psychiatrist in any latitude of our country and that an encouraging
voice shall reach there, together with solution alternatives discussed and
expressed through official channels to satisfy our needs.
Although in essence problems remain, new communication tools offer
advantages we must use properly, such as in the case of the greater participation
achieved for the electing the members of the Board of Directors.
It was a process with setbacks and we regret the discomfort caused; we
commit ourselves to work in the permanent updating of the data base so as
to maintain an optimum information flow among associates. The Assembly
has mandated the modernization of this diffusion means. I invite you to
include in your “favorite markers” the Colombian Association of Psychiatry
website since it is a first –class tool for the defense of the profession; well
informed, we are less vulnerable.
You should bear in mind that as associates you have a second home
at the headquarters of the Colombian Association, the destiny of the
Association is traced by all of us, in our hands rests the responsibility
of being members of this Board of Directors. Personally and on behalf of
the new Board, I emphasize on our obligation to comply and strive for the
compliance of our by-laws, to keep you informed, and to be attentive to
problems associates may have in every corner of the country.

I have referred in my speech to the professional and social objects of the
Association; however, I must also refer, with great satisfaction, to the consistency
achieved in the academic and scientific fields, thanks in particular
to the efforts and organization of the Scientific Committee that has made of
this, the Fiftieth Colombian Congress of Psychiatry, a fully successful event.
I wish to dedicate to my family the honor I receive today, to my son
David Salomon who has lived with psychiatry since very early in his life.

When he was in his first year of primary school I was on my first internship
year. He has shared and endured with me many satisfactions and some
frustrations inherent to this profession. Thank you so much, dear son,
gift from God and seed of my inspiration, thank you for your patience and
understanding. Thank you, Dad, for your example with your commitment
as a lifelong ideal and principle. This is to you also, Mother, to you who
lovingly know how to bring down to earth some ideas and raptures. To
my sister, her husband and their children, the strength of that family to
which I also do belong. And now, to finish, I wish to acknowledge and
give thanks to my great friend José del Carmen Bornacelly, not only for
his excellent performance in the presidency but for every morning recess
during which I smoke a cup of coffee and he drinks a cigarette while we
daydream and make plans to fix the world, in particular regarding the
situation of psychiatrists in Colombia.
Beatriz Helena Caamaño León
Psychiatrist
President of Colombian Association of Psychiatry