Igas critical of French Psychiatry

Igas critical of French Psychiatry

Point.fr - published 31 / 05/2011 at 10: 19 - amended 31 / 05/2011, at 12: 20

A report of the General Inspectorate of Social Affairs is highlighting the excesses of the hospitalization of office





An Igas report lists 19 murders committed, these past five years by hospitalized patients of office. © Keystone / Maxppp

The French system of psychiatry is harshly criticised in a report that updates the 19 homicides in five years by forcibly hospitalized patients and a number of fugues of about 10 000 per year. The report of the General Inspectorate of Social Affairs (Igas) is revealed Tuesday by the daily Le Parisien , the same day where the Assembly should adopt a controversial text strengthening the powers of the directors of hospitals for hospitalization under duress.

Igas, which investigated to Paris, Lille, Amiens, Nice and Poitiers, has identified 19 murders last five years, all committed by male patients forcibly hospitalized and with a history of violence. The victims are women, relatives of patients, either other patients or healthcare personnel. The report identifies as 1 870 attacks on staff in 2009.

According to the authors of the report, it is the organization which is in issue, in particular the meeting in the same establishment of patients with pathologies of various severities. Children are sometimes admitted with adult and, thus, an autistic eleven years had to be placed in a cage typical Guyana in 2007 to protect in a trial case particularly shocking by the report. Is being challenged as surveillance of establishments is, according to inspectors, too easy to get out. The figure of 10,000 annual fugues represents 12% of the total of the interned patients. France 2, the Minister of health Xavier Bertrand has found it necessary Tuesday to adopt a new overall plan for the treatment of mental illness, which, he said, his Ministry