I joined this great family in 1990.

Although I was unfamiliar with the world of mental health, I just happened to get a job as a summer substitute, thanks to a friend who was already working in the Center.  In this way I was lucky enough to  get to work in many different parts of the hospital.  This was very fortunate, because it gave me the opportunity to learn about many of the pathologies that were being treated there, and which had previously been a tabu subject for me.  It was something that was never discussed with friends or family, because  in those days nobody knew much about the world of mental health. 

Gradually I grew more and more interested.

I began to notice that values such as “Hospitality” and “responsibility” and such like —values that my parents had already instilled in me— helped me to understand that this was a place where people in a condition of vulnerability, of marginalization or social discrimination because they suffered from a mental illness, could be listened to and treated like any other sick person anywhere.  And above all, treated with the respect they deserve.

Simply to be by their side, to listen to what they have to say,  to accompany them in their infirmity and their suffering —that means everything to them.

Nowadays I continue to benefit from various other experiences in the Germa’ Tomas Carnet Foundation.

This Foundation has given me the opportunity of working with mentally ill people who have been deprived by the courts of their legal rights of autonomy, which makes their situation even worse.

In this job I can come even closer to these patients and see beyond their disabilities, to understand their day-to-day realities, beyond the network of social assistance.