After tragic mass shooting: 'Too many are rejected'
The tragic mass shooting in Field's, in which a suspected 22-year-old perpetrator shot and killed three people and injured several, gets a large psychiatric organization on the field with a shout:
We need more psychiatric beds.
‘Too many are being rejected in psychiatry. It is a big problem that there is a lack of beds to admit patients. They are simply rejected, and if they finally get a place, there are also many who are discharged prematurely. We see extremely many readmissions, «says Jane Alrø Sørensen, who is general secretary of the organization Better Psychiatry.
Copenhagen Police have announced that the perpetrator has been part of the psychiatric system.
Jane Alrø Sørensen emphasizes that she does not know about the specific case, but that she knows about the challenges in the psychiatric system. Among other things, that for resource reasons one is forced to reject people with mental illnesses who want to be hospitalized, and that they are rejected because there are not enough beds.
'It's a big problem in psychiatry. The number of beds has been reduced over many years, 'she says.
The problems in psychiatry, according to critics, begin already at the first referral from the doctor. B.T. has recently been able to tell how patients in droves are rejected in the psychiatric system.
In round figures, approximately one in five adult patients has been rejected in the psychiatric system in the past year, even though they have been referred by their own doctor. For children and young people, it is about one in four.
An open question in a case like this is whether the 22-year-old has been adequately picked up by the psychiatric system before he - according to the suspicion - committed his crime.
On Monday, DR writes that the 22-year-old man tried to contact a crisis line shortly before the shooting.
On a series of YouTube videos posted by the suspected perpetrator, he appears with a rifle, which he takes up to his head and mouth, after which he can click the trigger.
In a video, he also says:
'Quetiapine does not work.'
Quetiapine is a medicinal product used to treat psychotic disorders.
P.t. the public knows nothing of the alleged perpetrator's contact with psychiatry.
Jane Alrø Sørensen says that it is impossible to make a completely fine-meshed net that picks up all psychiatric patients. Also those who should be hospitalized.
“One must be to the detriment of oneself or others. Here, however, it is important that it should be known. Doctors need to know that. Many psychiatric patients show up themselves and say that they are afraid that they may risk harming themselves or others. And they intercept the system as a starting point, 'she says and continues:
'But if it does not happen, or no one comes forward with a concern, then patients can walk around without it being detected,' she says.
During a visit to Field's on Monday, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen was asked why the Social Democrats have not yet landed a ten-year psychiatry agreement, which was up for election in 2019.
She would not answer that.
'Today, I think we need to remember the victims and take care of all those who have been involved in this,' the Prime Minister said.