Toulouse: “we no longer treat, we monitor”, the cry of alarm from caregivers at the Marchant psychiatric hospital
This Friday morning, Anne Stambach-Terrenoir MP for Haute-Garonne, visited the Marchant hospital center to listen to the discomfort of the nursing staff.
Appointment is given in front of the large black gate of the Marchant psychiatric hospital in the Toulouse suburbs. Behind this thick grid, Anne Stambach-Terrenoir, MP for the 2nd district of Haute-Garonne. The elected official, who rides under the colors of Nupes, organized an unannounced visit to the premises this Friday morning as part of a commission of inquiry led by her and her colleagues from Nupes all over France. “The idea is to come and listen to the complaints of these caregivers who work every day to help patients. As a deputy, I have the right and almost the duty to come to these places, ”introduces the elected official. Last Thursday, she was at the Purpan University Hospital, “there I decided to go to this place of deprivation of freedoms that is the Marchant hospital to take the hens of the situation there because there is an emergency”. Once inside this gigantic public hospital center which takes care of patients with psychiatric disorders, buildings on both sides and vast alleys as far as the eye can see. Along the walls, wandering sick people. Quickly, the deputy is joined by nurses, inserted in the South union. They report “the catastrophic situation”. “There is a professional burnout, we always do more with less staff, means”, confides, without filter, Guillaume Lahellec, nurse within the structure.
He also explains that within this health establishment, two thirds of the patients are hospitalized under constraints. “Most are complex cases with acute pathologies”, specifies the nurse. His nursing colleagues confirm that they are proposing but indicate that the health crisis is difficult to add an additional: the influx of patients. “Instead of providing care, we are therefore now rather confined to surveillance, with colleagues this leads to a loss of meaning and therefore a big wave of resignations”, slips François Ringoot, also a nurse. All deplore a lack of listening on the part of decision-makers “to respond to the emergency”. “Caregivers can no longer cope and it’s not going to get better,” admits a caregiver in despair.
“A sector that does not attract”
For a psychiatrist working in one of the eight sectors of the Marchant hospital “psychiatry does not attract because there is no valuation of salaries, careers and particularly difficult working conditions”. “We are in charge of people in great distress, very delicate situations to manage and few resources, so this does not attract young graduates”, he takes the time to explain before returning to take care of patients. . All share the same bitterness “this lack of arms and means has a strong impact on the care of patients”. “Sometimes we cannot respond to requests for lack of space”, insists Loïc Brélier, nurse and member of the South union. But as they point out “mental health is not treated like appendicitis or a sprained ankle, it takes time and people”.
After nearly three hours of discussions with caregivers, MP Anne Stambach-Terrenoir is heading back out. “The findings are alarming, hence the importance of this mission. At the end of the month, with my colleagues from Nupes, we will report on this subject, ”she notes.
Recently, François Piquemal, Nupes deputy for the 4th constituency of Haute-Garonne, went inside the Seysses remand center, still as part of this fact-finding mission.