Ironically, at the moment when a text message from a colleague in psychiatry from the South-West appeared on his screen on May 22, expressing concern about a strong request for vigilance over his patients, Pascal Mariotti was preparing to leave a conference at the National Assembly aimed at making mental health the “great national cause” of 2025. This is only the first alert received by the president of the Association of Public Mental Health Service Establishments, and director of the Le Vinatier psychiatric hospital (Lyon), on instructions “shocking and illegal”he denounces. These have since multiplied in several departments welcoming the Olympic flame: there is no question of letting certain psychiatric patients out – those hospitalized under the compulsory regime, by decision of the State representative (SDRE) – during the days concerned, it is indicated in substance.
In Haut-Rhin, Seine-Maritime, Loire-Atlantique… Orally, by mail, by e-mail: prefectures, most of the time, but also certain regional health agencies have asked hospitals to reconsider the authorizations for these patients to leave for so-called “non-consensual” care. Whether it is permission to leave (up to seventy-two hours), lifting of coercive measures or decisions on outpatient care programs (outside the hospital).
A few days before the opening of the Olympic Games on Friday July 26, the emotion has not subsided among the players in the sector, who have been speaking out for several weeks to protest these restrictions. “unpublished”with a fear: if such instructions were given for the passage of the flame, what will happen for the Olympic Games?
“Flagrant violation of their rights”
Psychiatrists and directors were moved by this, as were the patients’ spokespersons, such as the National Union of Families and Friends of Mentally Ill and/or Disabled People (Unafam), and even the General Inspector of Places of Deprivation of Liberty, Dominique Simonnot, who contacted the Minister of the Interior in a letter dated June 21 – which remained unanswered.
“This is the first time that we have been informed of such generalised measures, expressed in different ways but which are very similar to each other”, she points to the Worldwhile emphasizing in his letter the “a stunning paradox in stigmatizing and over-confining a group of patients with psychosocial disabilities, the polar opposite of the values displayed by the Games”. “These generalized bans on patients going out, imposed on hospitalized patients on a purely security basis, constitute a flagrant violation of their rights, and are very stigmatizing”adds Emmanuelle Rémond, president of Unafam.
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