Nice: hospital doctor indicted for deadly undiagnosed meningitis

A doctor who worked for the Lenval pediatric hospital in Nice was indicted for manslaughter after the death from meningitis in 2019 of a high school student who came to the emergency room, according to the prosecution.

“At the beginning of February, a doctor from Lenval was indicted for manslaughter and failure to assist a person in danger,” said the public prosecutor Xavier Bonhomme. The judicial investigation was opened against X on August 14, two months after the death of this 17-year-old girl who attended a renowned private establishment in Nice, the Sasserno high school. She left the hospital thinking she was suffering from a banal sunstroke, before collapsing the next day in the arms of her older sister.

At the time, Lenval, a hospital institution which accounts for nearly 60,000 emergency room visits per year, making it the third pediatric emergency department in France, had indicated “having followed the classic care procedure”, while that the family lawyer deplored that the victim had only been examined by an intern.

Non-specific symptoms

Asked by AFP, the hospital clarified that the intern was no longer part of its workforce to date, without further comment at this stage. The Regional Health Agency announced the death on June 14 and analyzes carried out at the Pasteur laboratory in Paris had confirmed “traces of a meningitis type attack, therefore a disease whose dangerousness we know and which requires very precise behavior. care, which was not done, ”said the prosecution at the time.

In recent years, the collective “Together against meningitis” has sounded the alarm and asked the health authorities to better inform the public and doctors, recommending strengthening the initial and continuing training of general practitioners, as well as emergency services. .

Meningitis generally begins with non-specific symptoms (fever, vomiting, apathy, etc.) which do not easily arouse the vigilance of family and doctors.