The tone is firm, the words chosen and the message clear.
For one of his first media outings, the new Minister Delegate for Health, Frédéric Valletoux, was visiting the Purpan University Hospital in Toulouse, this Tuesday, February 20, alerted by the Renaissance MP for Haute-Garonne Monique Iborra following two rapes on the same night from February 10 to 11 and the suicide of a patient hospitalized in the psychiatric emergency room on February 14.
After receiving all the public and private players in the sector, the man who chaired the French Hospital Federation for 11 years and “visited hundreds of hospitals” assured that he had “never seen that”.
In his sights, a private sector which, according to him, is not doing its part, to the detriment of patient care.
This concerns the Clinéa groups, with the Château de Seysses clinic, Ramsay, with that of Beaupuy and the Cèdres clinic in Cornebarrieu, and independent establishments such as the Aufrery clinic in Balma or the Montberon clinic.
The minister considers it unacceptable to find himself in such situations, while “private partners who carry 75% of the number of beds do not accept patients who do not suit them”.
“It is an unprecedented crisis which shows an unacceptable landscape of this mental health sector, which does not function in the Toulouse metropolis, and has been doing so for years.
I discovered that the public and private sectors do not cooperate, psychiatric emergencies which only weigh on the hospital…” protests Frédéric Valletoux.
The reopening of 15 beds and a mobile team
If he announced short-term measures, such as the reopening of 15 beds attached to the psychiatric emergencies of the Purpan University Hospital and the establishment of a mobile team, the minister above all highlighted "the state of mind and mentality that must change.”
To remedy these dysfunctions, Frédéric Valletoux, who claims to be minister of patients and the French before being that of health professionals, announced the imminent arrival of a mission from the General Inspectorate of Social Affairs (Igas).
This will have to point out responsibilities and find the means to facilitate this cooperation.
This Tuesday, the minister called for responsibility and asked the private sector to open places to accommodate patients.
A regulatory center for psychiatric emergencies will soon make it possible to assign patients to different mental health establishments, and a meeting of the steering committee, chaired by the management of the ARS, will ensure follow-up.
But Frédéric Valletoux was also very firm, indicating that he would henceforth make authorizations and financing conditional on the good cooperation of the actors.
“The hospital cannot be the recipient of what others do not want to do.
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Questioned after the discussions with the minister, certain representatives of independent private clinics, a little embarrassed, assured that they had “always worked in concert with the public”.
All the players will be brought together again this Wednesday by the Regional Health Agency.