the patient who had fled from a psychiatric hospital was arrested in Paris

He had escaped Friday from a psychiatric hospital in Toulouse (Haute-Garonne). The fugitive patient, aged 43, known for acts of rape and interned since 2013, was arrested on Saturday evening January 29, in the 9th arrondissement of Paris. Supported, he is the subject of an isolation measure. He was the third patient in ten days to escape from the Gérard-Marchant hospital in Toulouse, which houses 360 people divided into several pavilions. Last week, two men implicated in homicides and declared criminally irresponsible had escaped before being intercepted a few hours later.

“Every time a person leaves the hospital while in treatment, we are always worried”explains Professor Antoine Pelissolo, psychiatrist, head of department at the CHU Henri-Mondor in Créteil (Val-de-Marne). “These are first and foremost sick people. We first assess the symptoms to set up care and monitoring. We must take maximum precaution”he continues, specifying that there are more or less protected units, depending on the behavior of the patients. “Psychiatry is not limited to these rare situations. We mainly provide care to people in pain and we manage to have very good results. We must increase the means available to help caregivers. The security reason is not not in the foreground”concludes Antoine Pelissolo.