Annemasse: emergency service staff attacked

The Emergency Department of the Pays de Savoie Private Hospital (HPPS) in Annemasse (Haute-Savoie) was closed until Friday morning after the attack on its staff on Wednesday evening by two men which left six people injured, indicated its direction on Thursday.

“The service staff are in a real state of psychological shock,” a spokesperson for the establishment told AFP, confirming information from the regional daily “Le Dauphiné Libéré”.

According to the hospital, the attack occurred around 11 p.m. while one of the two suspects, two brothers aged 24 and 33, living in Annemasse and Gaillard, was waiting on a stretcher in the treatment area. as a patient after administrative care.

“Dragged by the hair”

Coming from outside, his companion then managed to sneak into the department whose doors were closed before attacking a nurse “verbally and physically”, “dissatisfied” after “ten minutes of waiting” as part of the charge.

“He pushed her, dragged her by the hair” before being joined by his accomplice who was on the stretcher. Around fifteen members of the Emergency Department including a doctor “came to the aid of their colleague”, receiving blows from the two men who “then fled” by car, according to the same source.

The Thonon-les-Bains Public Prosecutor’s Office indicates that the two suspects were finally arrested on Thursday, after presenting themselves at the Annemasse police station at the beginning of the afternoon, reports France Blue.

“In a state of psychological shock”

Among the fourteen staff members involved, “all in a state of psychological shock”, six suffered from “facial swelling” and for some of them “a cracked rib, trauma to an ankle or a fracture in one hand. They all had to file a complaint Thursday evening at the Annemasse police station.

The Pays de Savoie Private Hospital (HPPS) in Annemasse has 250 beds and its Emergency Department records around a hundred consultations per day.

Stone-throwing and aggression

In a joint press release, the Haute-Savoie prefecture and the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Regional Health Agency (ARS) “strongly” condemned these “acts of aggression” towards health personnel like those which took place in besides “between the month of December [dernier] and early January” in the department.

“At the beginning of December, at Sallanches Hospital, two nursing staff were violently attacked. […] On January 6, a SMUR vehicle belonging to the Annecy Genevois Hospital Center was stoned during an intervention,” they recall, emphasizing their “unwavering support” for healthcare workers.

Every day, on average, in France, 65 healthcare professionals are victims of physical or verbal attacks, according to the same source.

AFP/Aymeric Dejardin-Verkinder

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