There are multiple socially constructed forms of care that coexist under opposing logics—health as a right versus health as a commodity. From this perspective, access to mental health care is largely determined by each individual’s class position or class fraction. This segmentation results in deep inequalities in access to services.
According to the 2024 Ipsos Health Service Report, Chile leads the region in concern over mental health, with 69% of the population identifying it as a key issue.
In this context, mental health care must be accessible to the entire population, regardless of ethnic identity, political ideology, or geographic location. Timely treatment of mental health conditions not only reduces individual suffering, but also helps lower the risk of other illnesses and both intentional and unintentional injuries.
Mental and neurological disorders in older adults, such as Alzheimer’s disease, other dementias, and depression, contribute significantly to the burden of non-communicable diseases. In the Americas, dementia prevalence among people over 60 years of age ranges between 6.46% and 8.48%, and projections indicate that the number of people affected will double every 20 years.
However, public spending on mental health remains extremely low, representing only 2.0% of total health budgets across the region. Of that, over 60% is allocated to psychiatric hospitals, highlighting a model that continues to rely on institutionalization rather than promoting a more integrated, community-based approach.
At the micro-social level, the situation becomes even more alarming for the most vulnerable sectors. From a psychoanalytic perspective, what predominates is not just anxiety, but psychic pain—a form of suffering with no apparent way out, which at times seems to equate to death itself.
Understanding mental health in the region requires recognizing that the processes of health and illness are not isolated or sudden events. Rather, they result from an accumulation of social, economic, and cultural conditions that manifest in people’s bodies. Lives marked by inequality, precariousness, and exclusion give rise to effects that, while initially subtle, ultimately become deep forms of suffering. In this sense, physical and emotional distress does not emerge out of nowhere, but is the result of life trajectories shaped by concrete material conditions.
Therefore, it is crucial to remind institutions that mental health is also a fundamental human right. In light of this reality, we must uphold a critical and committed stance in every space of care and practice—one that enables us to review our methods and challenge existing health responses.
Only through constant, situated, and collective reflection can we move toward more just conditions of care, ensuring that the right to mental health is upheld for all, with special attention to existing inequalities
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