Following numerous strike movements, a demonstration was organized on the Place de la République in Paris to denounce the lack of means in psychiatry.
This Tuesday, January 22, a demonstration was organized on the Place de la République in Paris to denounce the lack of resources in psychiatry. Several collectives of patients and caregivers in the mental health sector are at the origin of the movement, such as theUnion of Psychiatry (USP)the SUD and CGT unions or even the Collective 39.
Trivialization of isolation practices
They alert, for example, to the “trivialization of isolation and restraint practices which have multiplied over the past twenty years”, and campaign to improve care and working conditions. The idea is also to allow the convergence of the many strikes that take place in different hospitals, as recently in Amiens, Rouen or Le Havre. At present, a dozen psychiatric hospitals are experiencing movements followed by mobilizations.
“We want enough staff to be able to listen to patients and avoid dramatic situations where we find ourselves forced to lock them up, to restrain them”, affirms in Le Figaro Oriane Cayard, nurse at the GHU Paris psychiatry and neurosciences.”When I started in psychiatry 14 years ago, the conditions were already not great, but I knew the patients, they knew me, I was able to anticipate the crisis situations. Now we can no longer remember their surname”, she criticizes.
Unfilled psychiatric positions
The situation of psychiatric care has long been considered catastrophic in France. The Minister of Health Agnès Buzyn also granted an additional 50 million euros to the sector at the start of the year, and must give indications on the development strategy to be held at a meeting next Thursday.
“More than 25% of psychiatric positions in hospitals are not filled. The 50 million euros promised by the Minister of Health may be nothing but a straw as the situation is tense and dramatic”, declared the president of the USP Pascal Boissel in Release.
The word is falling apart
“Speech, which should be the first tool of care in the psychiatric hospital, is coming undone”, also summarizes Pinel in struggle. “We are asked for more and more paperwork, numbers that have no meaning”, still tells AFP one of its members, the psychologist Isabelle Basset. “We don’t treat a schizophrenic like we treat a broken leg, it’s not quantifiable,” she laments. Between 1976 and 2016, the number of general psychiatric beds in the hospital fell by 60%.
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