Morocco’s King inaugurates psychosocial rehab Center in Casablanca

King Mohammed VI on Wednesday inaugurated the Psychosocial Rehabilitation Center as part of Casablanca’s Ibn Rochd University Hospital. This project, carried out by Mohammed V Foundation for Solidarity, illustrates, once again, the special interest the Sovereign takes in the promotion of the health sector in Morocco.

The King took the opportunity to visit various departments of this center, whose mission is to care for patients with mental disabilities caused by serious and chronic mental illnesses, with a view to reducing the deleterious effects of their disability and promoting their social and professional reintegration.

The project, which required an investment of around MAD 10.5 million, is part of an action plan led by the Mohammed V Solidarity Foundation, aiming to support the national medical sector, through the reinforcement of the existing medical offer, the improvement of access to care for the most deprived populations, and the integration of a complementary social approach in the mechanisms of accompaniment of the patients and beneficiaries

Adjacent to the Ibn Rochd University Psychiatric Center, this 2,100-square-meter facility has a therapeutic pole with psychology, psychiatry, occupational therapy, and functional evaluation rooms, as well as a socio-educational pole with a multipurpose room and workshops for cooking-therapy, plastic arts, pottery, hairdressing-aesthetics and computers.

These thematic workshops aim to help patients become aware of their emotions, improve their ability to concentrate, stimulate their imagination and creativity, regain self-confidence, participate in their social and professional integration, identify possible blocks that were previously unidentified, and provide them with a group experience that promotes communication.

The new Center allows the patients treated, estimated at more than 1,300 per year, to break with the isolation caused by their mental pathology, as well as to develop their relational abilities, acquire certain professional skills and improve their sense of well-being.

In order to fulfill its mission, the Psychosocial Rehabilitation Center of the Ibn Rochd University Hospital has 5 medical specialists (3 psychiatrists and 2 neuro-psychologists), 7 mental health nurses, as well as a support staff composed of 7 trainers in hairdressing, computer science, cooking, sports, theater, pottery, and art therapy.

The result of a partnership between the Mohammed V Foundation for Solidarity and the Ibn Rochd University Hospital in Casablanca, the Psychosocial Rehabilitation Center is managed by the Psychiatry Department of the Ibn Rochd University Hospital in collaboration with “The League for Mental Health”, an association specialized in mental health. Currently, 156 people are followed at the said Center.

This project comes in addition to the many medical and social initiatives carried out by the Foundation and aimed at reinforcing the mapping of the health care offer in the region, notably through the creation of local medical centers.