Par Daniel Cholet
Published on
“Twenty-four hours of waiting for a vulnerable elderly woman, with an extremely poor state of health, in a corridor, how is that possible? “.
Marie-Pierre Mazzaggio lodged a complaint at the Ermont police station against the Simone-Veil hospital in Eaubonne for “neglect of a person incapable of protecting himself”. She forwarded her file to the public prosecutor.
“I will fight my fight until the end,” she said.
On a stretcher “in full draft”
His mother, Josette Carlier, 83, died on January 4 in her Ehpad Le Village in Taverny, where she had entered on December 13.
She had remained in the emergency room of the Simone-Veil hospital from December 19 to 21, 44 hours in all, most of the time in a corridor.
Upon her return, Josette had refused, “in all conscience”, to eat.
“I’m sure the way it happened in the emergency room had a big impact on his health and his psychological state, which caused the inevitable.”
On December 19, during a daily check-up, the nursing home nurse noted the weakness of Josette Carlier, who did not answer the questions put to her.
The doctor of the establishment, who examines him, notes hypotension and low saturation. He then contacts the Samu who takes him to the hospital.
She arrives at the emergency room “under oxygen and on a drip because dehydrated”
Josette arrives at the emergency room at 7 p.m., “under oxygen and on a drip because she is dehydrated”, specifies her daughter.
Supported by the reception service, his constants are noted by a caregiver.
When she arrived at 9 p.m., Marie-Pierre noticed that her mother was lying on a stretcher “in a hallway, in the middle of a draft, waiting to be seen by a doctor.
Her daughter’s down jacket for lack of cover
She had no blanket on her, just a disposable sheet and the IV was off. »
At midnight, her mother still not having been taken care of, Marie-Pierre left the emergency room, leaving her down jacket “because there was still no blanket”.
The next day at 9 a.m., Marie-Pierre calls the hospital. He is told that his mother has still not seen a doctor.
“My niece goes to the hospital at 10:30. She waited in the hallway with my mother until 7 p.m., before she was examined by a doctor. During all this time, my mother did not have a change despite several requests from my niece and only one snack, namely two spoons of compote during the day, knowing that the night before she had not had dinner when she arrived. . »
24 hours before seeing a doctor
Around midnight, the results of the examination came out and the doctor informed them that Josette was suffering from “a hyponatremia (note, lack of sodium), a very pronounced sliding syndrome, a urinary tract infectionfrom dehydrationa urinary globe, a acute renal failure and several edema to the lower limbs. After these results, my mother was again put in a hallway, where she remained overnight, from December 20 to 21, awaiting admission to the acute geriatrics ward.
No place in acute geriatrics
On December 21 at 3 p.m., 44 hours after her admission to the emergency room, Josette was sent back to her nursing home.
“The same doctor informed us that the acute geriatrics department was overcrowded and that there was no more room. From the moment she returned to her room, my mother refused to eat. She had asked for a long time not to benefit from relentless therapy. »
Fourteen days later, Josette died.
The hospital explains that it had to face “very strong tensions at the end of the year”
“The message from the patient’s family has caught our full attention, we sympathize with their pain and we are in contact to provide answers,” said the hospital in a press release. Regarding the context, the end of 2022 was marked by a critical situation at national and local level. This has resulted in very strong tensions on public hospitals linked to the flu and Covid epidemics, recruitment difficulties and bed closures. At the Simone-Veil hospital, this exceptionally tense situation led to the strengthening of the healthcare teams as much as possible and to managing the available hospital beds as closely as possible. Despite the mobilization of our teams, the waiting time in the emergency room has been lengthened over this period. We are sincerely sorry for our patients and their loved ones. »
After having contacted the management of the hospital, Marie-Pierre Mazzaggio had received, in December, a telephone call from the person in charge of relations with users.
In a written response, the general director of the hospital, Nathalie Sanchezpromised him an investigation within the service and a return “as soon as possible”.
A month later, Marie-Pierre still had no news.
“What to say after this terrible ordeal? If not my anger, my pain and that of my family and my decision to bring this negligence to the competent authorities as well as to the media. My mother will have lived her last weeks in physical and psychological distress that no one deserves. »
A month ago, the striking unions denounced “degraded care” for patients
On November 22, a month before Josette Carlier was taken into care, the paramedics of the Simone-Veil emergency reception service – nurses, orderlies and stretcher bearers – went on strike for 24 hours. “They can no longer bear to subject users to degraded care conditions. They feel mistreated and mistreated, ”lamented the Unsa-Santé & social union. And among the requests, the presence until midnight of a reception and orientation doctor. A
symbolic crisis of lack of personnel. “The management agrees with us, it is not she who is blocking, the difficulty is linked to recruitment. If we are permanently overloaded, it is also because of the lack of nursing homes in town to take care of patients, who suddenly turn to emergencies, for lack of doctors in town”, underlined Angélique Bosselet, from Unsa Health.
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