Assault and murder. In a few days, two doctors found themselves in the news. General practitioner in Clamart, Jean-Paul Hamon testifies to this violence.
The attacks on doctors are not receding. In 2015, 924 verbal or physical attacks were recorded by the Observatory for the safety of physicians. And the news of recent days will not calm the concerns of the profession.
Liberal physicians are indeed in shock following another appalling and, unfortunately this time, tragic assault. It is that of Dr. Patrick Rousseaux, a 64-year-old general practitioner, fatally stabbed Wednesday morning in his office in Nogent-le-Rotrou (Eure-et-Loir). Marisol Touraine, Minister of Health, was quick to react. In a press release, she expresses her support “to all general practitioners in France, bereaved by this tragedy, who do exemplary work every day, in sometimes difficult conditions, at the service of their patients”.
Practitioners are all the more traumatized because they were barely recovering from another assault. The facts took place in Limoux (Aude), Tuesday morning, in a general practice. According to the newspaper the independent, thehe doctor, installed in the city center, was starting his day of consultation, when a patient furious at having to wait his turn hit the doctor, before returning to throw a stone in his face.
These attacks are not foreign to Dr Jean Paul Hamon, general practitioner in Clamart (Hauts-de-Seine), contacted by Why Doctor.
Have you ever experienced assaults in your practice?
Dr Jean-Paul Hamon : Yes, it happened to me. Once a man came into my office with an ax in his hand. I closed the door and looked for a weapon too. I only found a reflex hammer, removed its rubber, and ran after my attacker who escaped on his bicycle. Another time, I had problems with a patient who had lost his wife, and who held me responsible for her death. I was not at all at the origin of the intervention in question, but he had made it known in the city, that he had a sniper rifle and that he intended to take revenge. For two years, I visited, always glancing at the windows of her apartment, to make sure I was safe.
Have these attacks changed your practice?
Dr Jean-Paul Hamon : Even if I can tell you that these assaults marked, and that we remember them for a long time, the doctors of my group practice came to work as if nothing had happened, the very next day. We have decided not to change anything in our organization. With us, patients always enter the practice where there is a reception office, then people are distributed among the two waiting rooms of the group.
Do you think that violence against doctors is increasing?
Dr Jean-Paul Hamon : The medical secretaries have rightly admitted to me that undoubtedly people are much more aggressive than a few years ago. It is probably, they tell me, because the appointment times are longer. Patients don’t get what they thought they were getting right away. I was surprised to learn it because until now the secretaries did not speak about it. Often they are the first victims of this violence.
Find the full interview with Dr Jean-Paul Hamon:
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