A young woman, taken care of for a cesarean, had died in 2014, following a mistake made by an anesthetist under the influence of alcohol.
The case had caused a stir in the fall of 2014. A young woman had died in childbirth at the Orthez hospital (Pyrénées-Atlantiques). Helga Wauters, the anesthetist who had taken care of Xynthia Hawke during a cesarean, had a blood alcohol level of 2 grams per liter of blood. After the doctor, it is the turn of Orthez hospital to be indicted for manslaughter, report the Republic of the Pyrenees.
A decision which surprised the hospital establishment, which itself had brought civil action against the practitioner, “to contribute to the manifestation of the truth, to assert his prejudices and to support the family of the victim and the agents of the service. public ”, reminded the regional daily, Frédéric Pigny, director of the care establishment.
Questionable recruitment
During the investigation, Helga Wauters did not deny having drunk on the evening of the drama. But the patient’s death was not the result of an unfortunate combination of circumstances. The Belgian anesthetist suffered from alcohol dependence, probably linked to a depressive state. Her colleagues had also observed a slowed speech in their colleague and even a smell of alcohol on the evening of the tragedy. But for lack of available staff, it was the Belgian anesthesiologist who had been left to take care of the 28-year-old mother-to-be, who would never have known her baby, him safe and sound.
The pathological report of the doctor to alcohol quickly raised the question of his recruitment. “It is indeed the anesthesiologist who is directly responsible for the death of the patient, but there are indirect causalities which have contributed to this tragedy to occur, summarizes Me Courtois, lawyer of the victim’s family, quoted by the Republic of the Pyrenees. The recruitment was carried out in a very cavalier manner, while the anesthesiologist had been dismissed twice in Belgium for her alcoholism. And a sanction of suspension should have been taken against him in the days preceding the facts. This drama could have been avoided. “
The Orthez clinic in the sights
A point of view that visibly shares the investigating judge in charge of the case, but not the lawyer of the hospital, Me Béthune de Moro. He has already indicated that he would appeal this indictment. The lawyer maintains that the Orthez hospital did not have control over the recruitment of this practitioner, in reality hired by the Orthez clinic! “Doctor Wauters was obviously considered during this surgical intervention as an occasional collaborator of the public hospital service”, argues Me Béthune de Moro.
The next stage of this long procedure could precisely concern the clinic of Orthez, which could join Helga Wauters and the hospital of the city on the ranks of the indicted.
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