In the courtyard of Saint-Jacques hospital, in Besançon, this 19-year-old girl confirms what everyone knows: the health crisis and Covid-19 have had a terrible effect on the mental health of human beings. A student at the University of Besançon, she evokes the difficulties of distance learning, the distress of students, isolation, even the need to seek treatment. A purpose to which this Bisontine who has just entered adulthood has not escaped.
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His testimony illustrates the reality of health professionals working in psychiatric units: “Since the start of the last academic year, our services have welcomed increasingly younger patients, for whom this was the first treatment”, Emmanuel Haffen, head of the adult psychiatry department at Besançon hospital.
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Often saturated beds
The professor looks back on a year of health crisis: “During the first confinement, we observed a drop in activity, both on consultations and on hospitalizations. This was undoubtedly the result of an effect of astonishment due to the incipient crisis. “
At the time, the desertion of certain healthcare services was also explained by the fear of the virus and of contact with potential patients. It didn’t last long. “Since last summer, we have seen a real increase in the number of psychiatric emergency room admissions, in contexts of suicidal crises, heavy alcoholism, depressive or anxiety disorders. »A reality that has had repercussions on post-emergency hospitalizations. Currently, the beds in the service often remain saturated and the pressure is struggling to relieve.
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Suicides on the rise recently
On suicides and suicide attempts, the average trend is stable over the past year. “We can nevertheless observe that there are perhaps more suicidal gestures now than at the beginning of the health crisis”, adds Emmanuel Haffen.
This data, for the moment not quantified, does not make it possible to make a direct link between pandemic, mental exhaustion of the population and the death drive.
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A patient loses 14 loved ones in one year
In recent months, some patients have knocked on the doors of Bisontine psychiatric units after being infected with the coronavirus. Others never had it. “The biological factor is not the only one responsible for this increase in support”, explains the department head. “The health crisis, the presence of the virus, the changes in habits linked to the pandemic have a psychological impact. “And the doctor cites this edifying example:” One of my patients, who is an elderly person, has lost 14 relatives in a year, due to the Covid “.
According to him, caregivers, exhausted by a year of health crisis and tested by the ambient morbidity, have turned to psychiatric services. They are not the only ones. Following the example of the students, a population on the front line during this crisis: “Idleness, the loss of social ties and odd jobs, the stopping of classes, have had an impact on the lives of these young adults who need psychiatric care, ”explains Emmanuel Haffen.
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