Anger to calm down. Thursday, Agnès Buzyn will try to respond to the grumbling staff psychiatric hospitals, who demonstrated Tuesday across the country to protest against the deterioration of its working conditions. In addition to the 50 million euros announced last month, the Minister of Health is expected to announce new measures, but the sector of hospital psychiatry is skeptical about the effectiveness of this plan.
Patients put out. Because with half the number of beds for thirty years, rooms are overloaded and psychiatric hospitals are overwhelmed. Doctors therefore prioritize emergencies and are obliged to let patients who are not yet completely treated. "We bring out stabilized patients but without setting up social support," summarizes Claire, psychiatric nurse in Île-de-France who wishes to remain anonymous.
>> From 7am to 9am, it's two hours of information with Nikos Aliagas on Europe 1. Find the replay here
"Services so discouraged". Opposite, the number of patients has also increased sharply. "There is better identification of certain disorders and pathologies such as depression and autism," says psychiatrist Antoine Pelissolo, head of the service of Henri-Mondor Hospital in Créteil, near Paris. Today, specialists estimate that one in five French people suffer from depression, bipolar disorder, autism or schizophrenia.
Antoine Pelissolo has in any case recently written to the Minister of Health to ask him to act as soon as possible. "It's been several years now that there are almost always services on strike, they are so discouraged that they say they can not anymore."
"To tinker" and "run everywhere". This lack of resources to treat patients with severe disorders also prevents the staff of psychiatric hospitals from doing their job properly, according to them: "When there are not enough people to take care of people, necessarily, we do less well, we take risks and things get worse, "laments the head of department. Claire, paid 1,800 euros net after two years in hospital, has the impression of "tinkering" and "running everywhere". "There are days when I feel even more like seeing my patients," she says.
Financial resources are sometimes redirected to other services in hospitals, for other care considered more urgent or to fill deficits. Caregivers want the minister to hear about one thing: we need to make psychiatry a priority.