Le Figaro Nantes
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It's easy to make amalgams but when we see what happened to our two colleagues in Reims yesterday... I am very worried about the future of psychiatry, "warns Murielle Louvel, FO representative of the Public Institution of Mental Health (EPSM) with departmental vocation of Sarthe. This Tuesday morning, this educational and social companion was present in Nantes on the occasion of a regional union rally FO-Sud-CGT-CFDT. Eight representatives of the psychiatric sector were received by the Director General of the ARS Pays de la Loire to discuss staff shortages and bed closures.
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Mr Jumel took note of the picture that was drawn up, he broadly shared the diagnosis, he noted with interest the fact that no additional information had been added on the death of our colleague in Reims. After, concerning the solutions, we expect concrete, "says Jean-Jacques Péaud, FO secretary of Cesame (Angevin Mental Health Center) in Maine-et-Loire. He was part of the delegation welcomed during this meeting taking place - coincidence of the calendar - the day after a knife attack carried out by an individual with a psychiatric history and which caused the death of a nurse of the University Hospital of Reims. A minute of silence was observed in tribute during this mobilization.
" READ ALSO Nurse stabbed in Reims: a minute of silence observed Wednesday at noon in hospitals
Lack of staff
Beds, arms, salaries, more training, pensions... "I have the impression that it has been ten years that we repeat the same thing," whispers a demonstrator to his neighbor when the unionists, coming from the departments of Loire-Atlantique, Maine-et-Loire, Sarthe and Mayenne express their demands at the microphone. In Allonnes, in the Sarthe, "we have 25 full-time doctors instead of 57. There is a shortage of 40 nursing positions," says Murielle Louvel of the EPSM. Yesterday, she learned of the closure of 38 additional beds, while patients already sometimes wait "five to six days" in the corridors of the emergency room of Le Mans before being taken care of. "In psychiatric wards, colleagues are physically and verbally assaulted, spat on, they receive death threats... Because there are not enough of us to listen to them, to stabilize them," she warns.
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It's going down everywhere, comments Jean-Jacques Péaud about bed closures. This is linked to both budgetary contingencies and a lack of medical and paramedical staff." A shortage due, depending on the profession, to a lack of training and attractiveness with night hours, weekends worked, wages that do not increase in the face of inflation ... At the Saint-Jacques hospital in Nantes, the secretary general of the CGT of the CHU Olivier Terrien speaks of eight closed beds "while we need additional beds" and at least "25 vacant nursing positions". As a result, "we almost hospitalized a 9-year-old child in adults for lack of space in child psychiatry". The upsurge in violence also worries him with "intrusions of non-hospitalized patients who know the hospital [...] : caregivers and patients are insecure".
" READ ALSO Children's mental health faces a lack of resources
Consequences for the whole of society
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Let's take the example of someone who has a suicidal crisis. When it comes, logically, it should stay 48 to 72 hours. Today, we take them out the same day, "laments Jean-Jacques, nurse in the psychiatric emergency room of Laval. Working in this sector for almost 30 years, he has seen the situation deteriorate over the past decade. Now he is looking forward to retirement and is even thinking about raising sheep. But beyond his personal case, he warns about the consequences for the whole of society.
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Sick people are carried by their relatives, their neighbors who are the first impacted, "abounds Antoine, also a nurse in the Laval sector. He highlights an additional difficulty related to the lack of resources: "we spend our time apologizing to patients and their families...". Another Nazarian professional tells the crowd that a few days ago, "on the psy parking lot of Saint-Nazaire, there was an assault. A guy showed up with a hammer, he smashed 18 cars of colleagues, he was bloodied, there was blood in the cars." The police had to move.
€2.7 million in 2021 and 2022
Contacted, the Regional Health Agency of Pays de la Loire said to be "aware of the difficulties currently experienced by the psychiatric sector in the region, as in the whole country, due to growing needs for care (especially among the youngest) and a tension on medical demographics". It speaks of "153 beds currently temporarily closed out of the 1306 authorized in the region".
In terms of solutions, it claims in particular "the establishment of a regional cell for the scheduling of adult psychiatry beds" which makes it possible to refer patients in the region's institutions according to available beds. It is also based on a "national roadmap for mental health and psychiatry" declined at the regional level with, for example, a suicide prevention number (31114), a VigilanS program for recontact of suicidal people to avoid recurrence, 2.7 million euros mobilized in 2021 and 2022 to strengthen the teams of mental health institutions, or the deployment of adolescent homes... A few minutes earlier, the demonstrators had denounced "decisions of Paris taken for the mass, and not for the individual, which make lose the sense of care".
