Med Trop (Mars). 1981 May-Jun; 41(3): 265-71.

[Technical assistance in psychiatry in Senegal (author's transl)]

Auguin R.

The reported technical assistance programme in psychiatry has been established by professor Collomb and his team. It reflects 20 years of professional experience in african environment. The author underlines the extreme ambiguity of the african position, expressing a conflict between two cultures and their respective systems: the traditional and the western ones. Both are layed down on divergent concept about madness and consequently induce a different attitude toward the mentally ill patient: rejection and segregation in the western societies; acceptance and rehabilitation in traditional societies. Any technical assistance programme in psychiatry must take into account these realities and aim at to establish an effectual and operational compromise. With regard to the present conditions, it is what has been achieved by the senegalese experience, with its 6 curing structures: -- one urban hospital set-up at Dakar-Fann, attached to the Teaching Hospital Center, open to the city, and in which psychiatrist, healers, and families closely collaborate; -- two "psychiatric villages", built up similar to traditional "healers villages": Kenia, next to Ziguinchor, and Botou, next to Tambacunda. Each is supervised by a qualified male nurse. Living conditions are traditional and their material and financial autonomy rather relative; -- one D.I.A.M.M. (Dispositif itinÃ©rant d'aide aux malades mentaux). It is a mobile team of assistance to mentally ills, covering the national territory and articulated with permanent health structures. This team informs the public, carries out case finding, assures prophylaxis and treats on the spot.