After a year and a half of health crisis, the sector of mental health and psychiatry, "
on the verge of implosion
", anxiously awaits the announcements of the Head of State which will be made Monday and Tuesday, during the Assises long promised by Emmanuel Macron.
Professionals expect that the president announces at the end of the debates the reimbursement of consultations with psychologists, the unions fearing, however, the announcement of an "
indecent
" rate.
They also hope, without much conviction, that an emergency plan will come to the aid of a disaster-stricken public psychiatry.
Read alsoBlues or depression, how to tell the difference?
The Covid-19 epidemic has put a spotlight on mental disorders, from which more than 12 million French people currently suffer. Isolation, anxieties, domestic violence in the privacy of confinements have also been the detonators of new suffering. "
In 2021, we have gone from one in five people affected by these disorders to one in four
", warns Rachel Bocher, head of the psychiatry department of the Nantes University Hospital. The crisis has also cast a harsh light on the dilapidated state of the sector. "
Ten years, however, that the reports follow one another with the same observation: psychiatry is on the verge of implosion
", she laments.
Emmanuel Macron had therefore made a promise of these meetings, the Ministry of Solidarity and Health even evoking a "
historic moment
".
The postponement of the event from June to September only increased expectations.
"
It is important to get psychiatric disorders out of the walls of the hospital
", rejoices Marie-Jeanne Richard, president of the National Union of Families of Sick Persons (Unafam), who sees it as a way to finally break the taboo surrounding this subject in France.
"
We need billions
"
The president of Unafam regrets, however, a very “
health
”
orientation
, and the absence of many associations in the medico-social sector. In a column published Saturday evening by Le Parisien, 187 signatories including 90 psychiatrists also regret that "
certain major themes
" are not addressed, such as "
the inflation of physical restraints (the equivalent of the straitjackets of yesteryear) and psychiatric isolation
", A"
shame
". "
Tying and isolating redoubles and worsens the psychological and social isolation of people already weakened by their mental disorders
", underline the petitioners, who consider "
urgent that a national debate opens on the question
".
Read also Moral of the French: have we already erased the Covid crisis?
For professionals, the expectations are as high as the fears of being disappointed.
"
It's simple: we must restore everything, and for that we need a big plan with billions
", summarizes Norbert Skurnik, president of the Intersyndicale for the defense of public psychiatry (Idepp).
With beds "
closed by the tens of thousands
" in recent decades and chronic underfunding, it is impossible to absorb the 40% increase in patients followed in ten years.
"
We must reduce inequalities of access, facilitate the course of care, create a culture of prevention,
" recalls Rachel Bocher. And to improve, too, the image of hospital psychiatry, which is unable to recruit young doctors to fill the many vacant positions.
At the dawn of the meeting, the National Union of Psychologists (SNP) fears the announcement of a reimbursement offer around 30 euros, "
subject to prescription and medical control
", which would be "
catastrophic for the profession
", according to its secretary general, Patrick Ange Raoult.
With other organizations including the CGT and SUD, psychologists call for a rally on Tuesday afternoon in front of the Ministry of Health, just before the probable announcements of the Head of State.