It’s a time bomb whose ticking is barely noticeable at the moment, and yet. At the Montauban CH, the staff of extra-hospital psychiatric care (for day care) alert their director about the conditions for the care of their patients.
Nearly 70 out of 77 personnel working in the extra-hospital psychology sector have signed an open letter revealing the situation. Teams whose mission is to screen, diagnose, treat and support the care of patients with mental disorders.
However, the staff is regularly called upon to reinforce the intra-hospital teams (which keep patients at least one night). “There are 18 vacant adult psychiatric positions for full hospitalizations. Positions where the hospital does not want or is unable to recruit,” denounce the CGT, FO and CFDT unions. In order to overcome this “hole”, the hospital regularly takes nurses and orderlies from outpatient departments.
A broken trust relationship
A situation which unbalances the teams of the two services: “we establish a relationship of patient to caregiver. It can take years to create a therapeutic alliance with a patient. When he arrives with us and he cannot find us, the confidence is broken “. The same is true in reinforced intra-hospital services where caregivers are “bombarded” with patients who have often been there for a long time and about whom they do not know much. “This is not a stable situation for the patient, laments a nurse, the instability creates nervousness. We have agents on arrest because of assaults.” Professionals in this sector are unanimous: good care for an outpatient prevents them from being hospitalized a few days later.
Postponed admissions
These “random turns from one day to the next” also degrade the organization of intra-hospital care. Another nurse is alarmed: “We must postpone admissions. Faced with suicidal people, they are offered appointments in a month instead of three days minimum.”
Care, however essential, is postponed. “A patient told me that if he hadn’t had a phone call, he was going to throw himself under a train,” added another nurse.
Especially since the health situation adds or creates anxiety. “We have seen a clear increase in patients in psychiatric care after the first confinement,” said a nurse. The backlash could be “catastrophic” at the end of this second confinement. Unions and staff are hammering it: the solution is to recruit.
Sent in mid-December, the letter alerting management has had no response. Contacted by La Dépêche, the management of the hospital did not wish to comment on this situation.
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