Current challenges and future perspectives of the role of governments in the psychiatric/mental health systems of Latin America.

The practices and systems of mental health in Latin America and the Caribbean are heterogeneous and are connected to dissociation between national macro systems and the complex quotidian that occurs in the daily attention of mental pathologies. The health care experiences in mental health are diverse and go back to the 1960s; these took a boost with the Caracas Declaration of 1990. The Health Care Reform has had several stages, lately focused in the strength that derives from a growing psychiatric epidemiology "base". In addition, it notes that the majority of countries have a National Plan of Mental Health, but they do not seem purposely deployed in local developmental plans or in other sectors. It is proposed the existence of a willing to discuss psychiatry, critical and bold; trans and intrasectoral face to the national and communal developments. Governments need to prioritize strategies in mental health as an integral part of another national project with regard for quality of life and productivity of citizens. The communication poses challenges for the next 15 years, with what is complete the first quarter of this century, proposing a series of measures even basic, but valid for this part of the continent.