Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris (AP-HP) will be tried before the criminal court for involuntary manslaughter, following the death in 2018 of a 55-year-old patient, admitted to the emergency room and left for several hours without “nobody cares”.
In his order of referral to the criminal court, issued on Wednesday, October 30 and consulted by the Agence France-Presse (AFP), the investigating judge states that “the AP-HP made a failure in a certain connection” with the death of Micheline Myrtil.
This patient, born in Martinique in 1963, who suffered from headaches and calf pain, was taken by firefighters to the Lariboisière emergency service on December 17, 2018 at the end of the afternoon, then received and referred to an emergency service on hold.
Called around midnight with incorrect identity (“Miatil” rather “Myrtle”), the patient never responded, so he was considered to have left. I was actually on a stretcher. “unsupervised” between 1 and 6 in the morning, when she was found dead, without having been visited by a doctor. An initial autopsy report established that the patient was dead. “Acute respiratory failure secondary to pulmonary edema”.
Left on her stretcher all night
According to the investigating judge, the “The gross negligence evidently lies in the fact of having medically treated M.me “Myrtil in the emergency room around 7 p.m. and without having been worried about the evolution of her condition for more than five hours”.
” Before “continue, “Calling her to the hospital in vain under an incorrect identity on two occasions, without trying to locate her when she was necessarily on her stretcher in the corner of the short circuit where she had been positioned, with her bracelet on her wrist. and left it there all night, without anyone worrying. »
According to him, “the guilt of gross negligence excluded any possibility of survival” of meme Myrtil, advancing “The lethal nature of an invasive meningococcal infection in the absence of medical treatment”.
If the Paris prosecutor’s office had initially requested a murder trial at the end of 2022, it finally requested a dismissal on July 3, considering that “The causal link between possible deficiencies in hospital care” AND “Death was not established”.
Lack of personnel and resources.
During the investigation, AP-HP’s defense argued that the protocol of the time “was consistent with professional recommendations”and that the situation that day was “exceptional, both due to the number of people admitted to the emergency room and the fact that exceptionally a doctor was absent due to sick leave at the last minute”. Neither the AP-HP, nor one of its lawyers, Mmy Mario Stasi did not want to react.
The global workshops
Online courses, evening classes, workshops: develop your skills
Discover
According to an expert opinion rendered in December 2023, the placement of the patient “in a “short circuit” zone it did not seem advisable given its initial state” but “it had been validated by the referring doctor due to lack of space”.
After this death, Lariboisière announced greater control measures for patients in the emergency room. The regional health agency (ARS) had also issued several recommendations, including an increase in staff. During the investigation, hospital professionals collectively blamed the lack of staff and resources, which they had been denouncing for some time.
At the hearing, the emergency doctor who should have treated Mme On the night of her death, Myrtil described an emergency system overwhelmed by the influx of patients and drew attention to insufficient resources and facilities that complicated care. “I didn’t even know this patient existed when I found out about her death.”will tragically admit.
The five main unions of the AP-HP (CGT, Sud, FO, CFDT, CFTC) had deplored “That this tragedy was necessary for management to finally commit to responding to the crisis situations suffered and reported”. The case of Micheline Myrtil had fueled more widely the chronic and still current debate about the crisis in the hospital world, even before the earthquake of the health crisis linked to the Covid-19 epidemic.
