Mélina Facchin, edited by Alexandre Dalifard / Photo credits: ARNAUD LE VU / HANS LUCAS / HANS LUCAS VIA AFP 06:43 a.m., January 15, 2024

Faced with insults and attacks, the Ministry of Health shows zero tolerance towards these acts and encourages victims to systematically report these facts. At the hospital in Nancy, where Europe 1 visited, there were more than 300 reports in 2023 and more than 800 security interventions.

Insults, threats, punches... Hospital health workers face violence on a daily basis. At Nancy University Hospital, there are more than 300 reports in 2023 and more than 800 security interventions. "You have to be sick to attack a health professional": this is the slogan chosen by the government for its first campaign against the violence and aggression to which hospital or medical practice staff are too often subjected. Insults, spitting, even physical attacks, the Ministry of Health shows its zero tolerance towards these acts and encourages victims to systematically report these facts. The hospital in Nancy (Meurthe-et-Moselle) is confronted with this on a daily basis.

'Zero tolerance'

Mathilde is a nurse at the University Hospital of Nancy. For 12 years, she worked here in the emergency room, the department where staff are most often assaulted. "Insults are unfortunately a daily occurrence. I was physically assaulted in 2016. A patient who was unhappy with his care and was very aggressive. I took a kick, was thrown several meters away, and had to leave my shift that night. Psychologically, what was hard was to tell myself that I was a victim in my workplace," she told Europe 1 radio.

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More than 300 assaults were reported at the hospital last year alone, and the security service, which Salzard is in charge of, responded nearly 800 times. "We regularly find people with knives, with box cutters, with scissors. In the middle of the year, we had a disgruntled person. She left the facility and came back an hour later with a hacksaw in her bag," he said. Jonathan now even gives self-defense classes to hospital staff.

Stopping this violence is a priority for Nathalie Charton, Human Resources. "Zero tolerance for anything incivil. It was totally unacceptable, we will admit more," she said. And she encourages all staff to report any assaults.