Paris (AFP)

Sexual assault sanctioned "well after criminal sanctions", accounts "often incomplete and insincere", compensation "unduly received": the management of the College of Physicians is characterized by "weaknesses, even drifts worrying", says the Court of accounts in a report released Monday.

The "functioning" of this institution "has not been modernized enough" and "important missions that justify its existence" as the monitoring of the obligation of continuing education or compliance with the rules of ethics of doctors "are little or poorly exercised ", continue the Sages of the street Cambon.

In a statement, the Council of the Order said to challenge the report "on the substance and on the form".

He is "astonished" that "several essential missions assured by the institution are passed over" and expresses "his deep disagreement on the analysis, which he deems piecemeal, the effectiveness of the missions" studied.

In February, the Chained Duck unveiled the contents of a draft version of this report, pushing the Order to "strongly contest" certain points and defend a management "healthier today than it was yesterday ".

"The findings of the Court have led the order of doctors to implement in 2019 some of its recommendations and to announce corrective measures," specify the Sages in the final document.

But the picture drawn remains very critical.

The Court denounces "a chronic lack of rigor in the handling of complaints", particularly in relation to rape or sexual assault.

"The analysis of about fifty decisions rendered between 2016 and 2017 reveals the existence of procedural irregularities (...) or a lack of diligence in the processing of cases," raise the Sages.

"Prosecutions and disciplinary sanctions often occur well after criminal sanctions," they add. They cite the case of a doctor convicted of sexual assault at six months of prohibition to practice by a correctional court in the early 2000s, and that the Council of the Order decided to continue disciplinary only in May 2016, after a recurrence "whose Order had been informed since 2015".

Another observation: the risks of conflicts of interest with the pharmaceutical industry are not sufficiently taken into account.

"The management of human resources" should also "be professionalized, so large are the disparities in pay and benefits," said the Court, which calls for a "permanent" stop recruiting "favoring family ties."

It also suggests opening to non-physicians the governance of the Order, which is also not very representative of the profession: less than a third of its advisers are women (and only 9% on the national council) " account for almost half of the medical profession and nearly 60% of newly enrolled physicians ".

With "more than 300,000 doctors registered, the Order has an annual budget of about 85 million euros," according to the court.

© 2019 AFP