Our conference in Split was held on the beach, with beautiful landscape and in a warm weather. Our regular conference participant Timo Kallioaho shares his memories about the conference:
“I had my pleasure to attend the ECMH in Split, Croatia, in September 19-21. I had earlier participated in the ECMH in Prague 2016.
The Hotel Le Meridien Lav provided a gorgeous setting for our conference. Split is the second largest city of Croatia and lies on the eastern shore of the Adriatic Sea, founded in the 3rd or 2nd century BC.
The organizing team in EVIPRO had again done everything in order to create as a cosy atmosphere as possible – e.g. the Get together party at the Grand Dalmacija Terrace of the hotel. So, all the guests from different parts of the world could right away meet each other and start networking.
Our conference consisted of keynote speeches, oral and poster presentations and one Round Table Discussion. Furthermore, hospital visits took place according to the programme. This time we visited KLINICKOG BOLNICKOG CENTRA SPLIT (www.kbsplit.hr) (= The University Hospital in Split). I could see there many similarities compared with our hospital visit earlier in Prague – the old communist era was still visible, though not so prominent any more. Having been involved in ENUSP’s work for a long time I was already acquainted with certain issues in advance: the care culture in many eastern European countries is still patriarchal seen from the western perspective.
The focus of the conference was set on multidisciplinary discussions and collaboration between professionals, researchers and service users in the field of mental health. As a service user, I was also able to have my PowerPoint presentation called “European Network of [Ex-]Users and Survivors of Psychiatry – What is it?” I do appreciate highly the fact that service users are also taken into account.
When writing this, I’m aware of attending the 10th ECMH 2022 in Lisbon if the COVID-19 doesn’t prohibit it. ” We sure hope that too!
