Doctors are increasingly victims of violence from patients. The Physician Safety Observatory noted in 2013 a clear increase in cases of verbal assault.
Gone are the days when doctors were untouchable personalities. Cases of violence against health professionals are on the rise. The doctors’ safety observatory listed 925 complaints in 2013 against 439 in 2004. The attacks were mainly verbal, representing 69% of cases in 2013. 11% of violence was physical and 4% of doctors declared having been victims of a armed aggression.
If patients come to blows with their doctors, it is very often because they are dissatisfied with the care, consider the waiting time too long, long appointment times or because the doctor has refused to prescribe medication, an examination or even a work stoppage.
The general practitioners most affected by these attacks
The doctors most concerned by these insecurities are general practitioners, who represent 58% of the doctors attacked. Ophthalmologists are the specialists most affected by this violence, followed by psychiatrists, gynecologists and dermatologists. It is in the North, in Seine Saint-Denis as well as in Paris that we register the greatest number of complaints.
However, few doctors go so far as to declare that they have been the victims of an assault. For the National Council of the Order, filing a complaint should be encouraged. Because 55% of doctors who say they have been victims of an assault have neither filed a complaint nor filed a handbook. A national security protocol was signed in April 2011 between the National Council of the Order of Doctors and the Ministry of the Interior, envisaging concrete measures to ensure the safety of doctors. Measures have already been taken in 48 departments, such as the establishment of a direct access number to the departmental security cell for doctors.
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