UNAFAM, representing families of patients and mentally disabled, demands “the abolition of mechanical restriction” of patients in psychiatry, denouncing the effects that it considers “harmful.”
While the Government is organizing an interministerial committee dedicated to mental health this Wednesday, June 11, Onaofam intends to ask the Government to change the law that prohibits it.
In 2022, 8,000 patients (of 324,000 hospitalizations in psychiatry) were subject to a compression measure, which consists in physically joining a patient to contain their movements, according to the association. This temporal measure is intended to prevent a patient in a state of crisis being dangerous for himself and for others.
“The content is not care, it is an extreme coercive method that pushes its climax the suspension of fundamental rights: right to dignity, the right to freedom, the right to free and enlightened consent,” writes a Fam in a “manifesto for the abolition of compression” published Wednesday.
“Feelings of despair and shame”
The association, which welcomes 20,000 families each year in its 350 sites, has received “numerous testimonies of physical and psychological suffering suffered, anxieties, feelings of despair and shame” by patients who have been subject to moderation.
The caregivers themselves seriously live this practice, which goes against their mission and “harms the attractiveness” of psychiatry, says the National Union of Families and Friends of sick and/or disabled people mentally.
For a FAM, the use of restrictions is the symptom of a broader “dysfunction” of the mental health system: lack of upstream attention, due to the “insufficient coordination” between general professionals and psychiatrists and the shortage of mobile equipment.
The use of mechanical compression is not inevitable, according to the association, indicating that 10% of French psychiatric establishments never use it. In order for this practice to no longer be used, a FAM requires a better training of professionals in “decallation techniques”, the development of “quiet spaces” or preparation, in relation to patients, “personalized prevention plans”.
Source: BFM TV
