The change of the attention paradigm to the sufferers of the Mental Illness
Barbacena holds all of these stories in its memory, and
more specifically in the Museum of Madness, opened
in 1996.
The Barbacena incident is noticable not only because it takes us back to the classic modal of mental institutions in the Middle ages (just as the Bethlem Royal Hospital of London, the oldest psychiatric hospital in the world, dates back to 1247, which was known for the brutal way by which the patients were treated) but also because of the accomplishment of the paradigm in the frills of Brazilian psychiatry.
The accusations against the inhumane treatment inside the mental facilities that were opened in the 70s and became stronger throughout the 80s and 90s mentioned some of Barbacena’s hospitals and started to catch the attention of society. The belief that the patient of mental disturbance should and could be treated without being taken out of their familiar surroundings, without being locked up in a psychiatric ward, revolutionized the beliefs in Mental health.
The challenge was accepted in Barbacena and the psychiatric hospitals suffered the interference of the Health Ministry. They were closed down and removed from the SUS. The so-called therapeutic residences that received the egresses of long psychiatric confinement and aid were offered to the Psychosocial Attention Centers.
Barbacena, in this sense, can be regarded as Brazil’s emblem of psychiatric wards. The county has more than 24 therapeutic residences, and more than 150 inhabitants, all of them egresses of long psychiatric confinements that lasted nearly a lifetime-30, 40, and even 60 years of social exclusion and ill-treatment.
