On April 19th, 1972, the Provincial Psychiatric Hospital Comandante René Vallejo Ortiz was inaugurated in Camagüey. This hospital institution was the first of its kind outside the capital of the country created by the Revolution. Distinctive for its teaching nature, humanistic work, in accordance with the most advanced thinking of psychiatric sciences.
Background of psychiatric sciences in the colonial stage in Cuba
With the foundation of the Royal Academy of Medical, Physical and Natural Sciences of Havana in 1861, chaired by Nicolás José Gutiérrez, thought began to take shape around psychiatry in Cuba. Its greatest exponents of the moment were José Joaquín Muñoz, Gustavo López and José A. Valdés Elder.
In 1864 José J. Muñoz works as the first director of the new psychiatric hospital for after completing his studies in Paris. The first recognized book on psychiatry published in Cuba is by Muñoz, Tratado de Alienación Mental, a Spanish translation of the work by his professor Jules Baillarger.
During the Republic
Psychiatric clinics characterized the procedures of this science. Havana was the one who stood out in the development of this particularized treatment. Researchers Pablo Hernández Figaredo and Laureano García Gutiérrez underline that in the 1930s and 1950s several private psychiatric clinics operated, including the Malberti Sanatorium and the Pérez Vento, Valdés Castillo and Gali García Clinics, the latter on the Coco Hito estate where now resides the Psychiatry service of the Enrique Cabrera Surgical Clinical Hospital.
During the revolutionary stage
Comfortable pavilions were built, others were remodeled and from this institution scientific medical attention was guaranteed where patients from different social strata received highly qualified medical assistance. So, on January 9th, 1959, Commander Dr. Eduardo Bernabé Ordaz Ducungé assumed the direction of the institution, which received the name of Psychiatric Hospital of Havana.
In Camaguey
During the Republic there was a small private clinic in the city called Villa Clarita. Then, on July 27th, 1943, in the Provincial Historical Archive of Camagüey, in the Registry of Associations, the file containing the approval of the institution called “Clínica del Alma” appears. Located on El Consuelo estate, on Lámina highway, on the corner of the extension of 3rd Street, in El Deleite neighborhood. Its corporate purpose was to care for the mentally ill and free them from the possession of evil spirits, according to the religious conceptions of its promoters.
The 60’s and beyond…
The aforementioned researchers point out that in the 1960s a 16-bed psychiatric service was opened at the “Manuel Ascunce Domenech” Provincial Hospital in the provincial capital, and its care was entrusted to doctors trained in the country’s capital.
It was not until April 19th, 1972 when the Comandante René Vallejo Ortiz Provincial Psychiatric Hospital was inaugurated in the provincial capital, built in the vicinity of kilometer 7½ of the Central East Highway, in whose construction patients in the process of rehabilitation of the Havana psychiatric hospital participated.
Drs. Guillermo Barrientos del Llano and Cristóbal Martínez Gómez sowed seeds that were later promoted by Dr. Alberto Clavijo Portieles. This institution has trained specialists from Ciego de Ávila, Las Tunas.
Transcendence
Other countries have found in the psychiatric sciences of Camagüey, a meritorious development. Physicians from Guyana, Peru, Mexico, Saint Lucia, Vietnam and Guinea Bissau, among other countries, have been trained in this institution.
Authors of specialty texts, training programs, including books resulting from research processes that have become self-help, show the development of this science. The text The alcoholic inside published by Ácana publishing house, by Dr. Pedro G. Hernández Mandado, First and second degree specialist in Biostatistics and Psychiatry. Master of Science and Consulting Professor of the Specialty, is an example.
Bibliography
Hernández, Pablo y Laureano García Gutiérrez (2021) “Aproximación a la historia de la Psiquiatría en Camagüey” en Humanidades Médicas. ISSN 1727-8120 2021; 21(2):615-636 615.
Hernández Mandado, Pedro (2016) El alcohólico por dentro, Editorial Ácana, Camagüey, Cuba.
Translated by: Aileen Álvarez García
