Seized the day after Professor Mégnien’s suicide at Pompidou Hospital, IGAS issued its report which points to shortcomings and makes recommendations
This is a highly anticipated report; however, its publication is excluded. The day after the suicide of Prof. Jean-Louis Mégnien, on December 17, 2015, in the premises of the Georges-Pompidou European hospital (Paris), the Ministry of Health entrusted the General Inspectorate of Social Affairs (IGAS), a mission on the circumstances of this tragedy and the accusations of mistreatment conveyed by the relatives of the deceased doctor.
Almost a year later, the mission was completed and the report written. “This document cannot be published”, specifies the IGAS in a letter to the minister. In question: “a lot of information relating to the privacy and private life of the deceased”. However, the inspectors published a summary of the report, which points to major institutional dysfunctions and includes some thirty recommendations aimed at preventing such an event from happening again.
“Proven sidelining”
The mission concludes that “the findings, if they aim to shed light on the circumstances of the tragedy of December 17, 2015, cannot be sufficient to explain it”. Several shortcomings have however been noted since the genesis of the conflict, in October 2013, the date on which negotiations on the succession of the head of the cardiology department began, to the detriment of Professor Mégnien, to whom the post was nevertheless promised.
Thus, IGAS points to “the absence of a meeting with all the protagonists and analysis of the conflict on the basis of an internal investigation”. Indeed, “the mission notes that it was never considered necessary to hear the parties and to carry out an internal investigation into the behavior and remarks attributed to Professor Mégnien, which he however always denied”. In fact, the relatives of the deceased doctor explained that Jean-Louis Mégnien had been the victim of a smear campaign organized by the management and certain hospital colleagues.
In the background, the IGAS points to the responsibility of the AP-HP and the Georges-Pompidou hospital in this affair. While Professor Mégnien’s suffering represented a high and known psychosocial risk, the mission observed “the absence or delay in reporting and assessing a risk situation”, “in the context of a proven sidelining ”. Neither the occupational medicine of the HEGP, nor the preventive medicine of the University of Paris Descartes were alerted.
Informal procedures
“The handling of this conflict, both at the level of the HEGP and at the level of the headquarters of the AP-HP, was carried out but without being able to rely on formalized internal procedures”, we can read in synthesis. It is considered “regrettable” that the “steps taken both at the local level and at the level of central mediation did not give rise to meeting reports and a formalization of the proposals made”.
Thus, “the approach and the latitude left to the actors in the absence of an institutional procedure did not offer a sufficient framework for an analysis and an optimal treatment of this conflictuality”, writes the IGAS.
Recommendations
IGAS therefore recommends that the Georges-Pompidou Hospital deploy “without delay” “more rigorous management of acts relating to appointments”. As for the AP-HP, it will have to “develop a charter of good practices in medical management”, but also a “training plan for the prevention, analysis and treatment of conflict situations”, something that it has partially started. to implement.
Regarding the prevention of psychosocial risks, the mission recommends establishing an “obligation to report these events”.
The second part of this IGAS report on the detection and prevention of psychosocial risks in hospitals is due to be published in the fall. Marisol Touraine has announced that she will take a series of measures in the wake. Concerning the suicide of Professor Mégnien, a judicial investigation was opened with the Paris prosecutor’s office for “moral harassment”.
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