Le plan blanc psychologique et psychiatrique : un dispositif d’avenir pour les victimes d’événements hors normes

Abstract

Assaults, accidents, natural and technological disasters: all of these can be psycho-traumatic events for those who become the victims. We should be on alert for the negative impact that could be created by the terrorist threat and the forecast on climate change- with its cortège of cyclones, hurricanes, typhoons, storms, floods, heatwaves, droughts and fires, etc. France is all the more exposed to meteorological dangers, as its national territories are spread across several continents with different geo-climatic contexts. In order to anticipate the treatment of mass mental trauma caused by these wide-reaching events, the existing mechanisms for dealing with such cases must be improved and adapted. To that end, French hospitals’ emergency plans could potentially evolve by being supplemented with a psychological and psychiatric emergency plan, one which would constitute a mechanism in the future for the victims of exceptional, nonstandard events. This is the subject of this interview with Bluenn Quillerou, an emergency psychiatrist in Paris who specialises in emergency planning and liaison psychiatry. The deployment of an emergency plan could be conceived for each hospital structure where psychiatrists and psychologists are present. The proposal suggests that a manager should be appointed for each area, where their tasks would be: (1) making an inventory of every psychiatric hospital structure and their professionals who are trained to treat victims; (2) making an inventory of psychiatrists and psychologists who work outside of a hospital structure yet would be likely to be available for integration into a regional emergency plan; (3) keeping up and organising the network outside of periods of crisis; (4) taking care of training for any potential mental trauma support staff, organising continuous training; (5) coordinating with other emergency plans and guaranteeing cooperation should any crisis arise. This emergency planning could be taken to a larger geographical level, and plans could be put into place which would bring all zonal and regional emergency psychological and psychiatric plans under the same umbrella. This zonal or regional organisation could be supervised on a national scale.