On November 24, 2018, 13-year-old Fares died at the intercommunal hospital in Créteil from untreated appendicitis. His parents filed a complaint against X for manslaughter and the head of pediatric surgery has just been suspended.
A year after the tragedy, Fouad and Jamila Djelal are still waiting for answers. On November 23, their 13-year-old son Fares was admitted to the emergency room of the Créteil intercommunal hospital, the CHIC. The boy complains of stomach pains.
Supported by the pediatric surgery department, he was examined by the head of the department, who placed him under observation and prescribed a CT scan, which was never carried out. “For 20 hours, Fares had no exam. I tried to alert the staff. He was convulsing. A nurse told me about an anxiety attack,” Fares’s mother explains to the Parisian, who affirms that a surgeon came after “16 hours” to announce to him: “I am going to operate on him urgently. Except we never saw him again.”
The next day, however, Fares’ condition deteriorated further. “There I see Fares very tense, and his eyes starting to roll back, so I tell them he’s feeling unwell and convulsing. You could see the stiff hands and feet like I don’t know what, I tried to relax his hands, impossible. I myself made the gesture, to be sure that it was indeed a convulsion. I did not trust this team”, detailed Jamila Djelal to France info.
Finally taken to intensive care, the boy died shortly after from appendicitis that was not treated in time. According to the teenager’s parents, the autopsy report would have confirmed that Fares suffered two cardio-respiratory arrests linked to peritonitis, that is to say an inflammation of the peritoneum, which can lead to the perforation of his appendix .
The head of department suspended at the end of November
Fares’ parents immediately filed charges against X for manslaughter. At the same time, the Regional Health Agency (ARS) opened an investigation last spring, but its conclusions, delivered in June, have not been made public.
“There is an investigation in progress,” CHIC director general Jean-Bernard Castet told Le Parisien. If he was not in office at the time of the tragedy, he assures that the CHIC has “implemented almost all of the recommendations of the ARS.”
But for Fouad and Jamila Djelal, the fight continues. Beyond the “sanctions to prevent further tragedy”, Fares’ parents are looking for answers. How could their son have died from simple appendicitis?
Pending the end of the investigation, the head of the pediatric surgery department was suspended on Wednesday, November 20 as a precaution by the management of the CHIC. “It is not a sanction but a measure to find serenity, the time of the instruction, in consultation with the ARS and the National Council for the management of practitioners”, declared the director of the CHIC to the Parisian.
At the same time, Fares’ parents learned that the Val-de-Marne Medical Council had referred the case to the regional disciplinary chamber.
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