Victim of an anesthetic accident during a cesarean delivery at the maternity hospital in Orthez (Pyrénées-Atlantiques), a 28-year-old woman died last Tuesday. The baby was saved. Rare, these accidents can nevertheless occur in the operating room when several unfortunate events combine.
But if this story is told today in your newspapers, it is because the anesthesiologist has “a pathological alcohol problem”. During childbirth, she would have intubated the patient’s esophagus instead of her respiratory tract to try to resuscitate her, specifies Marc Payet in The Parisian. Moreover, the members of the OR team reportedly noticed that their colleague had speech and responsiveness problems that day.
The day of the death of the patient, this 45-year-old doctor even presented himself to the gendarmerie with a rate of 2 g of alcohol per liter of blood, says the daily. Indicted for aggravated manslaughter, placed in pre-trial detention, this Belgian doctor admitted that her addiction was linked to a depressive state.
If it is not representative of the situation in the hospital or of a profession, the story of Orthez nevertheless highlights two elements. Stressed by their working conditions and responsibilities, more anesthetists than average suffer from alcohol dependence. They would be 90 out of 9,000, or 1% of this population, assesses, in the daily newspaper, Professor Francis Bonnet, vice-president of the French Society of Anesthesia and Resuscitation. To help them, Sfar has set up a toll-free number (08 00 00 69 62).
The tragedy of the maternity hospital in Pyrénées-Atlantiques also illustrates the difficulties of recruitment for small structures. The Belgian anesthetist had only been in post since September 12. But already, this clinic lacked gynecologists-obstetricians. It was threatened with closure. His final fate will be known today.
