This is the fourth escape in ten days. Between January 19 and 28, three patients escaped from the Gérard-Marchant hospital center and another patient fled from the Toulouse university hospital center (Haute-Garonne). If the first were quickly found and hospitalized again, the police are still actively looking for the fourth patient, Saturday January 29. The Occitanie Regional Health Agency (ARS) has announced that it has asked the management of the Marchant hospital to open an administrative investigation and has launched an inspection mission within the two establishments.
1What do we know about the four patients who ran away?
The series of runaways began on January 19 at the Gérard-Marchant hospital center, which specializes in psychiatry. That Wednesday, in the middle of the afternoon, Jérémy Rimbaud, 34, escaped from the service, where he was for a short stay. This former soldier, declared criminally irresponsible after the murder of a 90-year-old man and acts of cannibalism in 2013, usually lives in the closed unit for difficult patients of a psychiatric hospital in Cadillac. In his flight, he meets a 72-year-old retiree whom he violently hits with a broomstick. It was thanks to the intervention of neighbors that the police were able to arrest Jérémy Rimbaud, who offered no resistance. An investigation was opened for “attempted murder” by the Toulouse prosecutor’s office on January 21.
Five days later, another man, aged 48 and declared criminally irresponsible after the murder of two people in 2010, managed to escape from the same establishment for a few hours on the morning of January 24. He was arrested in the afternoon by police officers from the anti-crime brigade (BAC), 2.5 kilometers from the hospital.
On January 27, a patient manages to escape for a few hours from a closed unit of the psychiatric department of the Purpan hospital, which is part of the Toulouse University Hospital (Haute-Garonne), reports France Bleu Occitanie. The 33-year-old man had also been declared criminally irresponsible in an investigation into an assassination attempt on November 10, 2017 in Blagnac. He had thrown a car at students causing three serious injuries. The 30-year-old managed to thwart the vigilance of the hospital staff, by triggering “the fire system to escape” according to the prosecution, before being found by the anti-crime brigade around 4 p.m., while he was trying to withdraw money in downtown Toulouse.
The next afternoon, January 28, it was again at the Gérard-Marchant psychiatric hospital that a 44-year-old patient escaped from his unit. He had been indicted for raping his partner in January 2011. The justice had declared him criminally irresponsible and had requested his placement in a psychiatric hospital. Reported for worrying disappearance, the man is still wanted by the police.
2How did these runaways happen?
According to a former nurse at the Marchant hospital, interviewed by France Bleu Occitanie, the establishment, concerned by three of these runaways, is located in a large park surrounded by a fence. If a patient manages to get out of a closed pavilion and the alert is not given, he can easily end up in the street.
These fugues are not “not exceptional” and even “fairly common”, explained Isabelle Molière, CGT union representative at the Gérard-Marchant hospital, to BFMTV. She also clarified that“a patient is not a danger in itself” and that most often the passage to the act remains rare, because the patients are “stabilized”.
A very precise legal framework governs the hospitalizations of these patients, in particular those receiving psychiatric care at the request of a representative of the State, as is the case for the four runaway patients. However, “a psychiatric hospital is not a prison”, hammered Isabelle Molière. Thus, patients considered “dangerous” can be admitted to one of the ten units for difficult patients (UMD) existing in France. Once stabilized, they can then be followed in psychiatric units within hospitals where they benefit from a traditional course of care. This was the case for the four runaway patients.
The CGT of the CHU of Toulouse also affirms that the staff of the psychiatric hospital Gérard-Marchant respected the “protocol fugue” to the letter and that they will not be the subject of any blame, reports France Bleu Occitanie.
3How did the health authorities react?
An administrative investigation was also opened, from the first flight from Gérard Marchant hospital. ARS Occitanie has also asked that a report on the circumstances of this event be given to it. When the second escape from this establishment was announced, the ARS carried out an on-site inspection mission to ensure the compliance of the care of these patients. This mission has been extended to the perimeter of the University Hospital Center of Toulouse.
When the second runaway was announced on January 24, the Occitanie Regional Health Agency also asked the management of the establishment as well as the Toulouse University Hospital to introduce additional security measures in order to deal with any new unauthorized patient discharge.
Since January 28, according to the press release from the ARS, the two hospital managements have been ordered to strengthen the monitoring of patients as well as the number of on-call and on-call duty carried out by health managers and management. They are also asked to reinforce the security of entrances and exits and, for CHS Marchant, to make arrangements for the closure of the units concerned. On the other hand, the ARS has asked that the establishments set up a review of the risk assessments.