Prosecuted for having transmitted fraudulent results of the Covid-19 test to several hundred patients, three managers, at the material time, of analysis laboratories were sent back this Monday afternoon to the Nice Criminal Court.
“The samples in question were well taken but they were not the subject of any analysis, specifies the parquet floor of Nice at
20 Minutes
.
Fraudulent results were then returned.
“Facing the investigators, the respondents explained that they had not been able, then, to process the entirety of a large flow of screenings”, indicated the prosecution.
If you had tested negative for the Covid-19 virus between September 1 and October 8, 2020 in certain analysis laboratories on the Côte d'Azur, you were not in fact... perhaps not.
Prosecuted for having transmitted fraudulent results to several hundred patients, three managers, at the time of the events, of pharmacies in the Eurofins Labazur iLab network were sent back to the Nice Criminal Court on Monday afternoon.
These men aged 44, 45 and 74 are to be tried there for forgery, use of forgery, fraud and endangering others.
“The samples in question were well taken but they were not the subject of any analysis, specifies the parquet floor of Nice at
20 Minutes
.
Fraudulent results were then returned.
They would concern 497 tests, pointed during the investigations, which were thus the subject of a “manual entry” without the samples having been detected.
In September 2020, an “embolization” of the laboratories
The facts were committed in Nice, Peymeinade and Montauroux (Var).
And it was the report of a patient, surprised to obtain a negative result while having been diagnosed positive elsewhere, which had aroused suspicion.
“Facing the investigators, the respondents explained that they had not been able, then, to process the entirety of a large flow of screenings”, specified the prosecution.
In a press release published on September 22, 2020, the ARS Paca indicated that “the intensification of the screening strategy [had] led, in certain territories, to an embolization of medical biology laboratories, lengthening appointment times and reporting of results.
However, it specified that "the analytical capacities of the laboratories" were then "not at saturation point".
“Pressure” and “lack of resources”
On the eve of the trial, Me Romain Guerinot, the lawyer for one of the defendants, officiating in Nice, recognizes that certain samples were not processed "in the face of pressure and when the means were lacking".
But "only over two days" and "without making any profit", he says.
“At that time, at the start of the second wave of the pandemic, the laboratories faced a colossal flow of patients, he also describes.
The delays are getting longer and some even go so far as to harass the staff to obtain their results”.
The situation would have been untenable.
“We first considered health professionals as heroes, without giving them the means.
And now we want to pass them off as crooks?
A condemnation would be difficult to hear when on the management of the crisis, no one seems to be able to be prosecuted”, adds Me Romain Guerinot.
This Monday, if the hearing is not returned, he will plead in particular alongside the media lawyer Fabrice Di Vizio, figure of the antipass movement.
The liberal exercise company by simplified shares (Selas) Eurofins Labazur iLab as well as several managers of other labs on the Riviera could bring civil action.
Just like the Primary Health Insurance Fund.
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Justice
Nice
Court case
Coronavirus
Covid-19
Laboratory
Screening
Health
Paca