Limoux: A Travel Diary of a Psychiatrist in Africa

For more than fifty years, Pierre Sans has been a psychiatrist wholly devoted to the cause of the mentally ill. On the eve of his eightieth birthday, ten years ago, during which he dedicated his retirement to humanitarian missions in several African countries. As his long career draws to a close and these missions soon become unfeasible, in his third book he shares his anxiety and bitterness about the situation on this continent.

Between denial, rejection, and the lack of medical structures, mental illness remains the weak link for African health systems. “ How to ignore what seems like a real tragedy ? For the past ten years, I have denounced this omerta. In 2018, after several expeditions with mentally ill people in West Africa (Benin, Ivory Coast, and Madagascar), I wanted to alert opinions in a book Crazy Africa Omerta, Hoping to draw attention to the suffering of these patients “, He trusts Dr. Sans.

“ Today, four years later, after several expeditions, again in Côte d’Ivoire and Madagascar, and then in Mayotte, I re-launch exactly the same alert, revised and augmented, with my latest discoveries. At the height of my long career as a psychiatrist, I cannot bring myself to the deafening silence that stifles mental illness in Africa. ! “.

Among these long months in complete immersion as soon as possible the patients with whom he shared daily life. Among these are trips, from one place to another, often in vehicles “corrupt”On bumpy roads, Pierre Sans shares his excitement, disappointment, and exasperation through his memoirs of the road. We discover some excesses, the negligence of the local authorities, all in complete indifference, the dreadful Omerta continues !