Out of the 539 patient files with illness attributable to the Mediator, Oniam issued an opinion in more than half of the cases leading to compensation.
While in the PIP fraudulent breast prosthesis scandal the victims still haven’t received a dime, when are the Mediator victims? To this question, the National Medical Accident Compensation Office (Oniam) provides answers on Thursday. As a result, out of all the files of patients with pathologies attributable to the Mediator, and for which the Oniam panel of experts gave a final opinion, more than half resulted in compensation.
Favorable opinions on the rise
Since December 2011, 8,350 claims have been filed and a final opinion has been issued by the college for 1,784 of them. “Of these 1784 files examined, 82% did not concern the two pathologies whose link with the taking of Mediator is scientifically demonstrated, namely pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) and aortic and mitral insufficiency”, indicated Erik Rance , the director of Oniam.
Among the final opinions, 539 people were suffering from pathologies induced by the Mediator and the college recognized the imputability for 54.3% of them (293).
The patients who did not obtain compensation suffered from “aortic stenosis”, in other words from a narrowing of the aorta, the cause of which was not the drug from Servier laboratories.
Conclusion of these figures, among all the opinions given by Oniam, only 16.5% received a favorable opinion for the compensation.
Often criticized for its slowness, and its intransigence in examining cases, the college now seems to have partly rectified the situation. At the beginning of February 2013, the compensation rate for victims remained, it is true, very low with only 64 favorable opinions (7.6%).
The majority of victims satisfied with Servier’s compensation
Moreover, once the opinion of the college has been rendered, it is up to the Servier laboratory, which marketed the antidiabetic Mediator, to offer compensation corresponding to the damage suffered by the victim. And the 293 notices of compensation have all been honored by the Servier laboratory, specifies Oniam. Only 12 victims asked the Office to replace the laboratory because they were not satisfied with Servier’s offer. But the Compensation Office considered the laboratory’s proposals to be satisfactory, explained Erik Rance.
As a reminder, according to the communications director of the Servier group interviewed at the end of July by the Medical Press Agency (APM), compensation offers of around 6,000 euros would be offered by the laboratory to the victims. The amounts are fixed by the scale of the Oniam, she added.
Another 50 files submitted to Oniam each month
In addition, out of the 8,350 claims filed, there are currently 6,566 cases to be processed and 50 new claims are filed each month at Oniam.
Finally, in order to speed up the examination of files, which is currently being carried out at a rate of 80 per week, Alain Legoux, new president of the Mediator College of Oniam, announced that he was planning to bring together the experts five to six half times. -days per week (compared to four currently).
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