🧒Mental health· 2024-2026
No dedicated services for adolescents in crisis
A PAHO and UNICEF report and ASSE's own officials describe a system with no services designed specifically for the mental health of children and adolescents.
Bodies involved
ASSE · INAU · Ministerio de Salud Pública
What it is
Mental health care for children and adolescents is one of the weakest points of Uruguay's system. In June 2024 the Pan American Health Organization and UNICEF published the final technical cooperation report “Contributions to improving mental health care for children and adolescents in Uruguay”, produced through exchanges with the child welfare agency INAU, the national human rights institution and the Health Ministry, proposing “a shift to an intersectoral, community-based and human-rights-based model”. The diagnosis matters because INAU has institutionalised children and adolescents in its care, and ASSE is the provider for most lower-income families.
What is questioned
On 2 October 2025, before the joint parliamentary mental health committee, ASSE officials led by deputy general manager Alejandra Caputi said of adolescents that “we do not have services designed specifically for them”, and flagged substance use and mental health conditions in that group as a central concern requiring an inter-agency response, la diaria reported. The gap also shows up in the records: according to Brecha (24 April 2026), the human rights institution's survey of the notification system found “not a single notification of an involuntary admission” of children and adolescents in INAU care, even though such admissions do occur. On 6 August 2026 the institution spoke again, after the case —still under investigation— of a 13-year-old charged with the killing of her 81-year-old grandmother, warning against “explanations that reduce these cases to an individual diagnosis or detach them from the responsibilities of the State and of society”. In March 2025 an analysis circulated by the university's psychology faculty pointed to the lack of child psychiatrists in Artigas.
Why it matters to you
When the State has no service of its own, an adolescent's crisis is handled wherever there is room and with whatever is at hand. That makes care dependent on case-by-case arrangements, drives up its cost and leaves families with no guarantee of continuity. This is the group where demand has grown most and where least is known about what exists.
Where it stands
The human rights institution keeps the issue open: its most recent statement on it is dated 6 August 2026. The June 2024 PAHO and UNICEF report still has no public response setting out how many adolescent-specific services will be created, on what timetable and with what budget. The case of the 13-year-old is under investigation and the presumption of innocence applies. As of this file (August 2026) there is nothing after that date.
This money does not travel through state procurement
The contract-by-contract cross-reference is not available for this file. The money is executed through a channel the public-procurement open data does not record, so putting a total here would be inventing it. The cited sources are, for now, the only public quantification.
Where it goes instead
Public-private partnerships (PPP), trusts, state-to-state contracts, direct agreements, or a state company's own budget. None of those channels publish their awards on the Compras Estatales portal.
The procurement search shows agreements and services contracted by ASSE, but cannot identify which correspond to admissions of minors: purchase descriptions rarely break down by age. Nothing described here implies wrongdoing in any specific contract.
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