Mulhouse (AFP)

The medical regulation of Samu de Mulhouse seems to have worked according to the rules in the case of a woman who died after a call to Samu for chest pains, but a judicial inquiry must make it possible to investigate possible responsibilities, indicated Monday the floor of Mulhouse.

"It does not appear at first that there can be formally a malfunction", "since there is indeed a Samu operator who immediately passes a doctor and the doctor questions this woman quite normally", explained at a press conference, the prosecutor of the Republic in Mulhouse Edwige Roux-Morizot.

"An answer has been given, now the answer has been relevant, that is the full meaning of the investigations that will be carried out," she continued.

The Mulhouse prosecutor's office confirmed Saturday the opening of a judicial inquiry following the death in June of a 60-year-old woman, found dead in bed by a neighbor, ten days after an appeal to the employer Samu the victim to report that she was complaining of pain in her arm and ribcage.

The operator of the Samu recalls "in the instant same" this woman who lived alone and "immediately passes a Samu doctor who asks him a number of questions, which she answers," detailed Edwige Roux-Morizot.

"At the end of these questions, he tells him + madam, you took medicine, wait for them to take effect, stay well lying down and eventually call us back," she said again.

It was not mentioned possible transport by ambulance or by its own means to the hospital.

But "from this end of call is silence", which will cause the anxiety of his neighbor and the discovery of the body "in a state of putrefaction already a little advanced" ten days later, continued the prosecutor of Mulhouse.

"The autopsy revealed that she died of sudden cardiac death," she said. Following this autopsy report, the sisters of the victim complained.

"It was decided to open a judicial investigation of the heads of non-assistance to person in danger against X and not assistance to person in danger against legal person, which will allow the investigating judge to broaden the scope of his investigations in terms of finding responsibilities, "explained Edwige Roux-Morizot.

"All regulatory devices have worked," said Monday morning Corinne Krencker, director of the Hospital Group of the Mulhouse-Sud-Alsace region (GHRMSA), at a press conference.

"What is certain is that, as Mrs Krencker has said, regulation has worked normally," said Virginie Cayré, deputy director general of the ARS for the east of the Greater East region.

She pointed out, however, that the report on the findings of an administrative inquiry initiated by the LRA during the summer was "in the process of being finalized".

At the end of 2017, a 22-year-old woman, Naomi Musenga, had died in the hospital emergency room in Strasbourg, after being taunted on the phone by a Samu operator who had not given her a doctor. Two investigations, judicial and administrative, had been opened.

The emergencies of the Mulhouse hospital, which have been on strike for months like hundreds of other emergency services in France, are facing numerous departures of doctors, exhausted by working conditions.

© 2019 AFP