[Experience in Vaud of regional planning in psychiatry]

The author presents the planning of hospitals and medical-social services of the Canton of Vaud; this planning began in 1962 and it was the first attempt of its kind in Switzerland. In psychiatry and gerontopsychiatry, the principle of diversion by regions as an instrument to decentralize services, has permitted the creation of 4 sectors. Each sector is autonomous and equipped with its own medical infrastructures (hospital and ambulatory). The resulting evolution has permitted the reduction of psychiatric beds to 1.69 per 1000 inhabitants, this is one of the lowest number of beds both on a national and international scale.