To accommodate atypical families with treatment, delivery of reports and specific assistance, the Vice Governor of the Federal District (DF) Celina Leão (PP) inaugurated the first Specialized Reference Center for Autism Spectrum Disorders (Cretea) of the DF, at the 108 Sul metro station, in Brasília (DF), Tuesday morning (12/09).
During the event, the vice-governor launched the new Mental Health Assistance Service through Artificial Intelligence (SAMia). Celina also announced the creation of a research center on ASD within the Foundation for Education and Research in Health Sciences (Fepecs).
The vice-governor said that defending and welcoming atypical families is one of her main objectives. “I mean we are an unusual family. My mother had two rare children. One of them is no longer with us,” he revealed. The government plans to build two more Cretes, one to the north and the other to the south of the DF.
According to Celina, another project in development is a reference center at the Ministry of Education, for services aimed at the public education network. According to the vice-governor, GDF is already studying the reinforcement of Crete staff at 108 Sul to expand opening hours. Initially, Crete will open Monday to Friday, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Many families struggle to access their children’s diagnostic reports. However, patients can only be reported to locations with specialized care. And without this document, children do not have access to various services and rights.
“Reporting for those who have the autism spectrum in the family is a response. It is a form of care. It is an encouragement. It gives you a diagnosis (…) Once the diagnosis is made, you have a different condition of care. So for families it is a response. It is certainly dignity (…) For the mother the most important thing is reporting and care,” said Celina.
How Crete works
According to the head of Cretea at 108 Sul, Viviane Felipe, the unit will accommodate children aged 0 to 10 years old with a diagnosis or diagnostic hypothesis. “We will have all the medical support, psychiatrists, pediatricians, neuropediatricians and rehabilitators,” he said. The center will have services provided by a speech therapist and a physiotherapist.
“We will also work with parental supervision, to help this family take ownership, so that the stimuli continue at home,” he explained. Crete has no open doors. First, the family should search for a basic health unit (BHU) for evaluation and referral request.
“If it is a child suspected of autism. We have a whole team to carry out the evaluation process and the medical team. The psychiatrist and the neuropediatrician will make the reports. And we have the psychosocial service to also help with the request for all the services”, he said.
Helping families out of suffering
According to the president of the Brazilian Autistic Pride Movement (Moab), Edilson Barbosa, many children do not have the report and also find themselves without access to therapies. “This reference center will be important in getting these autistic mothers and children out of their suffering,” he concluded.
For Moab, new Crete should be opened to Ceilândia (DF) and Planaltina (DF) or Sobradinho (DF), but subsequently the whole DF should receive reference centers. “There are people stuck inside the house. We saw the image of a mother feeding her child inside a fence. The autistic person, without regulation, cannot survive,” he commented.
“Reporting gives access to the Free Pass, priority in queues. Without reporting, autistic people are invisible people,” he added. Moab will oversee the regulatory queue for Crete. According to the latest census of the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), the DF has 34,000 people diagnosed with ASD.
SAMia
SAMia was operating as a pilot project. According to Health Secretary Juracy Cavalcante, the topic of mental health has gained importance in the world after the Covid pandemic. “Today we must use all means to reach these patients,” he argued.
SAMia will filter and indicate the best route. “We will have guidelines. Often family members do not know how to behave when faced with a disorder or an outbreak. So there will be guidelines. With this application we will bring more accessibility and inclusion to better manage the patient,” he said.
From a public service point of view, the application will allow healthcare teams to follow the patient’s entire care pathway, in search of more assertive public policies. Therefore, SAMia will also generate statistical data on the population served.
Atypical parent company
Defender and coordinator of the Crete Creation Project, district deputy Eduardo Pedrosa (União Brasil) described the inauguration of the center as a “human achievement”. In addition to expanding the centers, the parliamentarian defended the creation of the Casa da Mãe Atípica, to accommodate mothers.
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