Tribune. “We are not going into the wall, we are already in”, warn some child psychiatrists today, while others are calling for a Marshall Plan in favor of the mental health of children and adolescents. Today, the entire psychiatric care system must be rethought and refinanced, to make it more welcoming and efficient for users, and more attractive and liveable for professionals.
But mental health goes well beyond the sole field of psychiatry, it concerns the lives of almost all citizens for themselves or their loved ones, as the health crisis has unfortunately demonstrated. The spectrum is very broad, it goes from “ordinary” psychosocial suffering to proven psychological illnesses, thus encompassing depression, various addictions, anxiety disorders, suicide, psychosis, suffering at work and burn-out, discomfort of isolated students, psychotrauma, autistic disorders, etc.
Failing responses
The answers given today, despite the great dedication and skills of the interveners, are lacking in almost all areas, with care and support structures saturated because they are undersized and insufficient in number.
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Mental health is not only a public health issue, it is an ethical and political issue based on many social and economic determinants, affecting education, work, housing, justice or even ‘environment. The psychological well-being of each person is, moreover, one of the essential conditions for the harmony and prosperity of the nation, with crucial issues of territorial and social equality. The most precarious and vulnerable are those who pay the heaviest price for mental disorders and their complications.
As there were very useful presidential plans for cancer or Alzheimer’s disease, it is therefore urgent today to make mental health and psychiatry a great cause for the next five years. Beyond the unprecedented means thus committed, such an affirmation would be a strong symbol to bring about a collective awareness and fight against all the taboos and stigmatizations which still surround these subjects, in France undoubtedly more than elsewhere.
A concrete needs assessment
A framework law on mental health should make it possible to overhaul both the organization of care and their budgets, and to set the major objectives to be achieved using a multi-year plan. The investment effort must match the funding delays, of several billion euros, accumulated over the years. Above all, it must be based on a concrete assessment of needs, territory by territory, allowing the most serious shortcomings in the care process to be filled as quickly as possible.
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