« Chacun d’entre nous doit être formé à repérer des signes de quelqu’un qui ne va pas bien »

Why is it important to open this event to the general public?

Initially, this is part of the roadmap, which is regional, but which goes down the main national axes. This is also part of a document that we have been working on which is the territorial mental health project. Internally, there is a desire to explain to the population, but also to allow them to not only adopt the approach of this mental health course, but also to take charge of their own health. When we talk about mental health, and we’ll be more vulgar, when we talk about a psychiatrist, it’s scary. It is a word that scares even the patient himself when he is diagnosed, those around him and even the caregivers who are not in this field of health.

According to the World Health Organization, mental health is not just about people with mental disorders. So what does this expression entail?

Mental health is a whole, it’s about well-being. It’s feeling good where you are, but also being able to understand that you have difficulties. We insist on psychosocial skills, that is, being good where we live, with the people we live with, including ourselves. Disorders related to mental health can be for example schizophrenia, suicide, depression… Everything is included. We can be stable one day and due to stress, for example, like being attacked or seeing someone killed in front of us, we can change very quickly. Here we can realize that we may have had a slightly depressed background or a problem that we didn’t know about.

One of the main points that will be mentioned during this webinar is prevention. Exactly, how to prevent these potential disorders?

Prevention is screening, which starts with raising awareness. It can be addressed to parents, teachers, extracurricular animators who notice behavior that may challenge. The earlier it is picked up, the more the struggling person will be able to integrate into the mainstream environment. In suicide prevention, this requires training in appropriate gestures provided here by the Tombolo Association. Each of us must be trained to recognize the signs of someone who is not doing well and may be attempting suicide. It’s just being considerate of others and finding out what might be a difficulty.

Do we have figures about mental health on our island?

We know that, since the beginning of 2022, we have had about twenty suicides listed on medical certificates. Which is a lot for our people. As for suicide attempts, there are some who come to the hospital and others who are not distinguished. But it’s not just that… We work a lot on behavioral issues with the KTM teams, early childhood, but also with schools. Many programs emerged after Covid.

A period of Covid which, as we know, had a strong impact on mental health…

Here too, as in France, during this period there was an increase in depression numbers. Two age groups were particularly problematic: the young and, especially for us, the elderly. Psychiatric teams alerted us of their concern. The elderly suffer from loneliness because their children have returned to France and they are alone here. The elderly have tried to commit suicide and have come to the emergency room. It is a big challenge. We are currently working with the psychiatry teams to develop more and more mobile teams that will go into the field and listen.

In addition, did this period reinforce existing problems or cause them to appear?

both. Covid was an anxiety-provoking time for everyone. We’ve all had a bad problem, regardless of our struggles or not before. This effect will remain for a long time and will have to be reworked. This includes projects of neighborhood associations, which support the young, but also the elderly, to give them back their place in society… For example, from Espace Sud we were alerted to the fact that young carers, who they are 15-16 years old. the elderly are not well and are entering stages of abandonment, anxiety because they are forced to become caretakers for their parents.

We know that there is a lack of resources in psychiatry almost everywhere in France. Is this the case here as well?

We won’t say we are perfect. We develop a lot of mobile teams because we are limited by the number of beds in the hospital. But experts agree that you need to identify people in their environment and intervene in the middle of a crisis before they go to the hospital. We are working consensually with CHMD and a little bit with CHU, but we are working towards a single mental health center. However, the state has responded well since the Mental Health and Psychiatry Assizes in September 2021. It has become a national priority to extend to the regions. Funding is up to expectations. We cannot say that we lack money. Our difficulty is more related to the project manager. To give such amounts, you need goalkeepers who are used to it. But we have a lot of goodwill in Martinique.

*Those interested in the webinar can register by phone at 0696 83 62 82 or on the eventbrite.fr platform by searching for the “Mental Health Journey Webinar” event.