“There is a doctor and we fire him, we are at the end of our tether”: anger in Millau after the expulsion of a Tunisian psychiatrist

Moved to tears, the head of department regrets "that human rights are thus violated. There is a doctor and they fire him. We are at the end of our rope. With the staff we try to do the best we can. " With daily consequences from the morning of Monday, June 3.

When the 300 patients regularly followed by the expelled doctor will no longer have someone to talk to directly. "Also counting outpatient services and emergencies, the figure rises to 700 patients. This is huge for the Millau and South Aveyron sector," supports Éric Animat. "This cannot be absorbed by the two remaining psychiatrists."

What the Aveyron prefecture says

This Friday, May 31, the prefecture of Aveyron did not wish to say more than the press release dated Tuesday, May 28. Which reminded us that"the foreign practitioner working at the Millau hospital entered France in 2022 under cover of a long-stay visa« student – intern ». He completed several periods of internship in Marseille then in Aveyron, during which he obtained several temporary residence permits, in accordance with the regulations in force. This further provides that the maximum duration of recruitment under several cooperation agreements in one or more public or private non-profit health establishments is set at two years, i.e. until May 31, 2024 for the ;rsquo;interested. Furthermore, this trainee doctor did not register for the 2023 EVC (knowledge verification tests). Under these conditions, he cannot claim a provisional authorization to exercise within the framework of the temporary exemptions that have been put in place."

Corinne Mora, elected CGT health representative, says she participated, this Thursday, May 30 in the afternoon, to have met Benoît Durand, director of the Millau hospital. " I asked him for the position of the ARS (regional health agency, Editor's note) on this issue. He replied that the ARS referred to the prefecture. But on Tuesday, during the rally in front of the sub-prefecture, a press release signed by the prefect and the ARS was released to the press!"

Also read: A psychiatrist working at the Millau mental health center under an obligation to leave the territory

"What about common sense ?" asks a practicing nurse out loud "in the psychiatric sector since 1989. I believe that we have been attacking, for some time, two pillars of democracy: health and national education ." And to quote Lucien Bonnafé (*), who died in 2003: "We judge a society by the way it takes care of its mentally ill and marginalized people."

(*) During the Second War, with others, Lucien Bonnafé developed the foundations of institutional psychotherapy, at the Saint-Alban psychiatric hospital, in Lozère.