On October 15, a young woman aged 25 died, shortly after her transfer to Montpellier University Hospital, from severe acute meningitis. Beyond the pain linked to her death, her loved ones question the chain of care for the young woman. And more particularly the diagnosis and the absence of an appropriate response provided by the regulatory center.
What happened on October 15?
Called by the victim to come to her bedside, on Tuesday October 15, her best friend “noticed that she was really not doing well”, she explained to Actu.fr which revealed the affair. She immediately called 15 who allegedly refused to take her in. She denounces the “contemptuous” tone of the operator of 15. “He told her: 'Calm down, ma'am. Drink water with sugar and you will be fine'”.
For almost two hours, while her friend's health continued to deteriorate, she tried several times to contact help. “My best friend, my confidante was abandoned by those who are supposed to protect us, despite my repeated calls to the 15th and 18th, no doctor, neither from Smur, nor from Sdis 34, no ambulance for several hours,” she explains.
Neither the young woman nor her friend owned a car. It was ultimately a third person who transported them to the emergency room of the Saint-Roch polyclinic. In the car, she lost consciousness. “She told me ‘I see everything white, I’m going to die’”. In cardio-respiratory distress, she was quickly transferred to the university hospital, where she died a few hours later.
Where is the investigation?
The family filed a complaint for failure to assist a person in danger. “No one was worried,” the victim’s father explained to RMC. I expect justice to be done and the guilty to be punished.” The prosecution confirms the opening of an investigation “into the circumstances of the death of this young woman in order to determine whether the responsibility of a third party is likely to be engaged”.
The current investigations must make it possible to know whether “the failure to trigger emergency services after the two calls constitutes a fault, taking into account the information communicated to the operator(s)”, specifies, to TF1, the deputy prosecutor of Montpellier. Justice must determine whether “this delay is likely to have an impact on the death of the young woman. An expertise will be ordered in this regard, in a second step.”
How are the authorities reacting?
The Occitanie regional health agency has launched an inspection mission. The CHU, for its part, launched an internal investigation. “Without waiting for its result, several measures [internes] have already been taken,” mentions the establishment in a press release, without further details. According to Actu.fr, the assistant regulator who managed the emergency calls was suspended as a precautionary measure by the management of the Samu and the CHU.
“All the elements available to the CHU have been communicated to the justice services,” specifies the establishment. The recordings of the conversations between the victim, her friend and the regulator were thus seized by the investigators. The hospital center says it is “at the disposal of the family, as well as those close to the patient”. He undertakes “to provide them in complete transparency with the details necessary to understand the exact circumstances of the death of this young patient”.
