Is it serious, doctor?

Published October 16, 2016

DOCTORS never go on strike, as that would be an infraction of the Hippocratic oath which binds them to the obligation of coming to the aid of the sick and injured without a second thought. Nevertheless, French physicians who say they are sick and tired of the growing incidents of violence in hospitals and dispensaries marked a day of symbolic protest last week without really distancing themselves from their patients.

Hospitals are rare places where citizens are provided not only medical treatment but also peace and calm in order to isolate them from tensions of the outside world. That is no longer the case in France, says the latest annual report made public a few days ago by the National Observatory of Health Centre (ONVS).

According to the report, countrywide statistics show doctors, nurses and medical aides are subject of verbal insults but also of physical violence by patients’ families and often by patients themselves on an average of every 30 minutes.

The report would probably have been ignored by the public but for a serious incident recently at the Delafontaine hospital of Saint Denis near Paris where a man, not too happy with the treatment being given to his brother, attacked the doctor with a weapon, seriously injuring both his hands.

In another incident a patient who had survived a murder attempt was visited once again by the attackers inside the hospital and could only be saved in time after the security forces intervened.

Patients themselves can become aggressive, as was the case at a Strasberg hospital where a man, irritated by what he thought was an excessive quantity of blood but in truth necessary for an analysis, pulled the needle off his arm and stuck it in the face of the nurse, missing her left eye by a few millimetres.

Newspaper reports have started revealing more details about the aggressors ignored in today’s growingly politically correct Western society. A physician at the Saint Denis hospital says: “Here we mainly receive patients more than half of whom are immigrants and do not possess medical cards; many are alcoholics or drug addicts.”

Often things can get worse. Saint Denis is a suburb of Paris heavily populated by immigrants from Arab, African and Asian countries. Dr Abu-Bakr Al-Najmi, himself of Moroccan origin, says: “When you go to Saint Denis you are no longer in France. Here we often joke among ourselves about crossing the frontier to reach the hospital.”

The other variety of professionals who never go on strike for obvious reasons are police officers. Their oath too, if one could call it that, was challenged last Saturday (Oct 8) when in Viry-Chatillon, some 20 km south of Paris, a gang of drug traffickers launched Molotov cocktails at police cars, seriously injuring at least four officers one of whom is still between life and death.

The message was simple: “This is our territory and the police has no business coming here.” The episode took a new turn the next day when in a press statement the socialist Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve described the assailants as sauvageon, a French term that can only be translated as the wild ones, bringing to mind a rebellious but sympathetic band of motorcycle riders led by Marlon Brando in the 1953 movie. A spokesman for Alliance, the workers union of the police, says an organised and heavily armed gang of drug traffickers cannot be described as sauvageon: police should be given the right to dismantle them, even if it requires armed action. Last Tuesday (Oct 11) was a day of police protest much in the same symbolic way as the physicians.

Asked if this was a serious sign, Dr Al-Najmi says: “How else can you describe the fact of doctors and policemen going on strike?”

The writer is a journalist based in Paris

ZafMasud@gmail.com

Published in Dawn October 16th, 2016

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