Reshaping Community Mental Health Services during the COVID-19 Epidemic - Report from the 59G21 Service in Lille, France

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic led to a rapid transformation of the health care system to cope with the risk of contamination and of developing a severe form of the infection. Although it is an international crisis, strategies have been decided nationally. In France, priority was given to hospital reorganization, especially intensive care units. Reorganization of primary health and mental health services took place with late and inadequate national guidelines or coordination. For mental health services, lack of visibility on the crisis impact on mental health, and difficulties in defining their place in the overall health strategy appeared as the main challenges to overcome. These rapid transformations impacted the whole organization of community mental health care. Any strategies developed must ensure that every person enjoys the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. Using a systemic approach, it has been necessary to identify both status and risk factors of communities, and to implement appropriate and efficient health promotion and crisis resolution actions. These theoretical issues and their practical impact are discussed using the field strategy developed during the first 28 days of confinement by the 59G21 service in Lille, France.

Community mental health services: Access for acute psychiatric care during the COVID-19 lockdown

“…The COVID-19 pandemic has affected various aspects of mental health services ( Byrne et al, 2021 ). Community mental health services experienced a greater impact of the pandemic such as closing of services in some places ( Antoine et al, 2020 ) and implementation of changes to service provision, e.g., rescheduling non-urgent face to face appointments, introduction of telehealth, changes to home visits ( Thompson et al, 2020 ). Despite the magnitude of changes at community mental health services, research on how the pandemic affected patient access for acute mental health care is largely restricted to emergency departments (EDs) (Ferrando et al, 2020) and psychiatric wards ( Itrat et al, 2020 ).…”