François, a 40-year-old from Montpellier, died after going to the emergency room three times, between October and November 2023. His mother denounces a lack of care.
Could there have been a fault in François’ emergency care in October 2023? This is the question that Déborah Monaco asks, a little over a year after losing her son. To France Bleu, she points the finger at the Montpellier University Hospital (Hérault), where the forty-year-old went three times during the month preceding his death.
“We dehumanized my son,” laments Déborah Monaco, who plans to file a complaint against the CHU.
A first outing against the advice of doctors
At the end of October 2023, François went to the emergency room complaining of violent stomach pain and nausea. He was then examined by a doctor “according to the rules of the art”, says his mother.
But the next day, he said he felt better and asked to go out. His request was accepted, even though the doctors who received him the day before recommended keeping him under surveillance, indicating a risk of “heart rhythm disturbance” and “death”.
On October 30, feeling “very, very weak”, he returned to the emergency room, where they refused to hospitalize him.
“I was told: ‘he left against medical advice so we won’t take him back’,” his mother recounts.
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He will return to the University Hospital a third time on November 4, his condition having worsened further. “Agonizing, he suffered excruciatingly,” declares Déborah Monaco who adds, again to our colleagues, that her son then made a call stating that he knew he would not make it and saying “goodbye” .
“A patient with specific needs”
Although he is hospitalized this time, his condition deteriorates rapidly. In total, he will go to the operating room six times in just 15 days. After suffering, among other things, a coma, a heart attack or even a hemarrogia, he died within the walls of the CHU.
A year later, the forty-year-old’s mother denounced poor care of her son who, she explained, was schizophrenic and “minimized everything” because of his pathology. “They should have had doubts about his discernment and consulted his psychiatrist” instead of letting him out during his first hospitalization, she believes.
“François was a patient with specific needs,” she insists.
The Commission for Conciliation and Compensation for Medical Accidents has been contacted, but has still not delivered its opinion.
