On this World Mental Health Day, a disaster-stricken sector as anxiety and depressive disorders have exploded since the Covid pandemic, presentation of the Sésame system which relies on general practitioners and specialist nurses.
Doctors are helpless when faced with all these patients who suffer from anxiety or depression and represent almost a third of their consultations. “There are times, we know there is a problem, but we don’t know what to propose. There is a void,” explains Marie-Hélène Certain.
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To avoid managing these patients alone, the general practitioner works with a mental health nurse who is right next to her office, on the 1st floor of the Mureaux health center, in Yvelines.
“Someone shows up who has sleep problems, pain all over and who collapses in your office, you quickly realize that there is a problem at work, for example. The psychiatrist, this is not the case. is not suitable, the psychologist not immediately or the person does not want to pay… That still gives us someone who will work with us”, highlights the doctor.
700 people already followed
Emmanuelle Laplanche therefore takes over when a patient has depressive disorders. The care is free and she is the one who calls to set up the first appointment. The strength of the mental health nurse is that “she is not a psychologist“, she explains. “It’s still lighter for them. They will be able to say: ‘Okay, I’m not doing very well morally’ and it will be worked on as the care goes on. When I arrived, I wondered how to present a psychiatrist, from a distance, whom they would not meet… And in fact, they find it wonderful”.
“They save themselves from seeing the psychiatrist and at the same time, they have the opinion of the psychiatrist.”
Emmanuelle Laplanche, mental health nurseat franceinfo
The nurse sees the patients every 15 days and a psychiatrist monitors their progress remotely. This is a way to get around the staff shortage.
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The Sésame system (Team Care in Mental Health) has proven itself abroad and is currently being tested by professionals in Yvelines. If it convinces, it will be generalized throughout France. “The project ensures that the resources of psychiatrists and the psychiatric system in general are spared,” presents the spokesperson for the system, Christine Passerieux, head of the psychiatry department at Versailles hospital, and to allow people who have psychiatric disorders to have good care, with the support of the general practitioner.”. These collaborations between doctors, nurses and psychiatrists to treat depressive and anxiety disorders have already made it possible to treat 700 people.