• The Council of State has just canceled the disciplinary sanction which struck a Toulouse child psychiatrist.

  • The Council of the Order had suspended him for three months from practicing following his report of alleged mistreatment of an 8-year-old girl.

  • The father seized the professional order and the justice.

  • This case of this doctor illustrates the legal uncertainty in which “protective” doctors find themselves.

The case of Eugénie Izard, a child psychiatrist from Toulouse, illustrates well the legal insecurity of doctors.

When they harbor suspicions of child abuse, they can be prosecuted either by their College counsel or by the suspected parent.

In December 2000, the doctor had been struck by her peers with a suspension from practicing for three months following her report, transmitted to a juvenile judge, concerning a little girl she was following.

The father of the 8-year-old child had seized the Council of the Order of Physicians, accusing him in particular of having addressed himself directly to the magistrate rather than seizing the Public Prosecutor.

The parent accused the child psychiatrist of a “breach of professional secrecy” and “interference in family affairs”.

But the Council of State canceled the disciplinary sanction on Monday.

“The mere circumstance that this report was sent to the juvenile judge (…) cannot, on its own, when the juvenile judge was already seized of the situation of this child, characterize a breach” of the Public Health Code , said the Council of State in its decision on Monday.

"The decision of December 10, 2020 of the national disciplinary chamber of the order of doctors is canceled" and "the case is referred to the national disciplinary chamber of the order of doctors", he continues.

The doctor still sued

"We doctors need to report our suspicions of abuse to the judge in charge of child protection," reacted Dr. Izard, saying he was "satisfied" on this point.

"But I am still likely to be convicted of interference in family affairs, being accused of having supported the mother to have abuse recognized," she said.

Some 160,000 children are victims of sexual violence, mainly incest, each year in France.

Subject to medical secrecy, risking disciplinary proceedings, doctors are at the origin of only 5% of reports of mistreatment of minors.

At the end of March, the Independent Commission on Incest and Sexual Violence Against Children (Ciivise) called at the end of March to protect “protective” doctors from disciplinary proceedings.

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  • Abuse

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  • Occitania