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OSC – Cantonal Socio-Psychiatric Organisation
The history of publicly funded psychiatry in Ticino may go back to the opening of the Cantonal Neuropsychiatric Hospital
(ONC) in 1898 at Casvegno, Mendrisio, but it was the new law on cantonal socio-psychiatric support (LASP) that prompted
the greatest structural change in state-run psychiatry. On 1 January 1985, all services that had hitherto been independently
run were brought together under one organisation: the Organizzazione sociopsichiatrica cantonale (OSC), the Cantonal
Socio-psychiatric Organisation. The OSC – which will be celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2010 – is the state-controlled
body in the canton of Ticino that includes all public hospital and outpatient facilities dedicated to psychiatric care, which in
2008 provided treatment for 8199 people.
The OSC’s director Michele
Salvini takes us on a brief tour
around the OSC, starting with
the “Medical psychological services” (with
outpatient departments at Coldrerio,
Viganello, Locarno, Bellinzona and Biasca
that treat the socio-psychiatric problems
of minors and their families) and the
“Psycho-educational centres” which also
care for minors (three semi-residential,
clinical and treatment centres at Stabio,
Lugano and Gerra Piano). The OSC also
uses “Psycho-social services”, outpatient
services for adults (based in Mendrisio,
Viganello, Locarno, Bellinzona and Biasca).
In June 2006, a laboratory for the psycho -
pathology of work opened in Viganello
which looks after people suffering from
the social, family, financial and legal
problems that result from difficult
employment situations (unemployment,
bullying/harassment, stress, redundancy,
etc.).
The “Medical psychology and psychiatry service” on the other hand is
responsible for the psychiatric and psychological needs of inpatients at
the canton’s hospitals who are being treated for somatic illnesses. Other
important facilities include the “day centres”, which act as halfway
houses between hospitalisation and outpatient care. At Mendrisio,
Viganello, Locarno and Bellinzona, patients spend part of the day on
treatment programmes adapted to their personal needs and aimed at
helping them relearn personal, relational and social skills.
In 1994 the Cantonal Neuropsychiatric Hospital was transformed
into the “Cantonal psychiatric clinic” and the “Residential, leisure and
work centre (CARL), both of which are totally integrated in the city’s
infrastructure, at the centre of a wonderful park that is open to the
public. The Clinic is a facility that only accepts acute psychiatric and
psycho-geriatric patients who require hospitalisation and cannot be
treated on an outpatient or semi-inpatient basis. Just as important is
the CARL, which only accepts adult patients suffering from a chronic
psychiatric illness; it is a secure location in which all its functions –
housing, work, time management, educational and learning activities
– are designed to allow patients to live in harmony with their own
potential for self-management.
Swiss Label Ticino 2010
C O M PA N Y P RO F I L E
Mental healthcare: an effective network for 25 years
The OSC has a range of objectives and challenges to overcome.
Among the objectives is ISO 9001/2008 certification for the CARL
and the day centres, certification already obtained by the psychiatric
clinic, the nurses' training centre, and the OSC’s central services. As
for challenges, the greatest of these is increasing the focus on care in
the community. In collaboration with the private sector and with
general hospitals, the aim is to reduce the number of hospitalisations
and the length of stays in order to free up resources for more prevention
and a greater presence in the community.
OSC - Organizzazione sociopsichiatrica cantonale
Via Agostino Maspoli - CH-6850 Mendrisio
Tel.: +41 (0)91 816 55 11 - Fax: +41 (0)91 816 55 09
Website: www.ti.ch/osc - E-mail: dss-osc@ti.ch
© OSC
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