Cambrai hospital, in the North.
-
Google Maps
She was tried for manslaughter after the death of a girl in 2016. Two years of suspended prison sentence were requested on Tuesday against a pediatrician at the Cambrai hospital in the North.
Individual fault for the prosecution, "defective conditions of the hospital center" according to the defense.
The correctional court is due to deliver its judgment on December 15.
On the evening of March 8, 2016, the 3-year-old mother of Maréva was awakened around midnight by the cries of pain from her daughter, whom she found in her bed vomiting while kicking herself in the stomach. .
Died of shock
The girl, who had been diagnosed with nasopharyngitis the day before, arrived by ambulance at Cambrai hospital at 1:30 am for vomiting and abdominal pain.
At around 8:30 a.m., the infusion pump rings, the nurse finds the child in cardiac arrest.
She died despite an hour of resuscitation.
According to the three medical expertises ordered, Maréva would have died of a state of shock, of a toxic megacolon or of a volvulus of the hail.
"Hypotheses" condemned to remain hypotheses, underlines President Louis-Benoît Bertemiez, the family having at the time refused the autopsy.
Contrary to the protocol, the reception and guidance nurse does not take the constants when the child arrives, claiming that the little girl was afraid.
Maréva therefore goes to pediatrics, without seeing an emergency doctor, and will have her first examination around 2:45 a.m.
"Here, there are only lazy people"
That week, two pediatricians took turns for the night on-call duty, at their home, against four theoretically: one had left without being replaced, the other on vacation.
"Worried" about the "serious" condition of the little girl, the general medicine intern of the service calls the senior pediatrician on call.
The latter asks him, in view of the clinical picture, to contact the surgeon on call.
"He gently puts me back in my place, tells me that for my future, I must learn a certain way of doing things, the pediatrician not having moved, he does not see why I call him, relates the intern, alone cited as a witness and now a general practitioner.
I wanted to transfer her to Valenciennes, since here, there are only lazy people, people paid to stay at home quietly, thinking that it was a guard ”.
"For me, she was not going to die"
She calls back the pediatrician, who arrives around 3:45 a.m., examines the child and calls the on-call radiologist - who doesn't come either.
In the absence of a scanner, x-rays of the thorax and abdomen are carried out.
The pediatrician left her home at around 4.30 a.m., received the results of the examinations and gave instructions to continue the surveillance.
“For me, she wasn't going to die.
She is in continuous care, with a scop ”, explains at the bar the defendant, who collapsed in tears, repeating to the parents, already separated at the time,“ to be really sorry and to regret ”.
But for the prosecution, the doctor "unintentionally caused death by not taking measures that could have avoided the death when she had the means."
“It was not the inaction of the other protagonists that led to Maréva's death.
It is the doctor's inaction, "said prosecutor Ambre Janssens, who asked for two years in prison.
Sentenced by the administrative court
If the pediatrician's lawyer, Me Brigitte Karila, recognizes "the diagnostic error", "a diagnostic error alone does not mean criminal misconduct" according to her.
She insisted on the lack of "common medical culture" and "faulty conditions" within the hospital.
"The fact that there was no teamwork had serious consequences," she said, pleading for release.
Seized by the family, the administrative court of Lille in 2019 condemned the hospital center to damages.
Since this tragedy, the specialists carry out their duty at the hospital.
Justice
Rennes University Hospital sentenced for misconduct after the death of a baby
Justice
Patient becomes paraplegic, hospital ordered to pay 760,000 euros
Justice
Hospital
Lille
Little girl
Jail