Europe1 .fr with AFP/Photo credits:MATHIEU THOMASSET / HANS LUCAS / HANS LUCAS VIA AFP 2:21 p.m., April 7, 2024

A stretcher bearer was seriously injured on Saturday after being beaten by relatives of a patient who came to "break everything" at the Challans hospital (Vendée), and a suspect on the run was sought on Sunday

A stretcher bearer was seriously injured on Saturday after being beaten by relatives of a patient who came to "break everything" at the Challans hospital (Vendée), and a suspect on the run was sought on Sunday. Saturday, at the end of the morning, "a gentleman came to the emergency room for a burn and individuals found that the (medical) treatment was not fast enough," Sylvain Batard, CFDT union representative at AFP, told AFP. Challans hospital, located 60 km south of Nantes.

“They got agitated and wanted to break everything at the entrance to the emergency room. In their anger, a colleague who was passing by to take his break in the parking lot was brutally attacked,” he declared, specifying that “the "The attack happened within a quarter of an hour of their arrival." According to the public prosecutor of Sables-d'Olonne, Gwenaëlle Cotto, the victim was hit by "a single person who was accompanied by other" people at the hospital.

“This person fled and we are doing everything we can to arrest him,” she said, adding that an investigation into “violence against medical personnel” had been opened by the prosecution. According to the president of Samu-Ergences de France (SUdF), Marc Noizet, the victim was "a stretcher bearer who was passing by", left "on the ground, unconscious".

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He "suffered serious injuries which meant he was in intensive care again today (Sunday)", he said on Sunday morning. He has since been "heard by the gendarmerie", later clarified Francis Saint-Hubert, director of the Vendée hospital group, without saying whether the victim had left the intensive care unit.

Following this attack, the emergency department of Challans hospital was closed "for several hours", according to Marc Noizet. "They had come to destroy everything (...) the teams are very shocked", said Marc Noizet. underlined Sylvain Batard.

“A psychological support unit for the team” has been set up. We do not understand this “gratuitous violence and the caregivers do not understand either,” regretted Francis Saint-Hubert.

 "Odious"

The Minister for Health, Frédéric Valletoux, denounced an “odious and cowardly act” on X (formerly Twitter). “A hospital is a sanctuary. No violence against healthcare staff can be tolerated,” he said, saying he supported the “seriously injured emergency stretcher bearer”.

Marc Noizet also expressed his “anger” that “caregivers could be the object of violence”. “We cannot be the variable of the anxiety, aggressiveness or violence of patients and those who accompany them,” he denounced.

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The people committed violence "because they were frustrated, either by the waiting time, or because they were not allowed to enter the ward alongside the patients", told the AFP Marc Noizet, for whom the attacker did not act alone.

“I understand that we can be worried about a sick loved one, but these people must understand that we must work while being safe,” he regretted.