The infected Karine Lacombe had shown sexist and sexual violence under her career in the hospital environment a year ago. This Thursday, April 17, the head of the Infectious and Tropical Diseases Service of the Saint-Antoine Hospital in Paris returns to the doctor’s daily life on the effects of #Metoo of the Medical World.
“I noticed a real awareness, with concrete initiatives of the authorities, surveys conducted by interns and a mobilization of the doctors order,” he said.
“Young people have taken the problem and finally dare to let it deplore that what existed twenty or thirty years ago,” added the infectologist. “At that time, this violence was often minimized. But today, young people refuse to tolerate them and plan to leave the hospital or academic career so as not to submit to them. Many women are already part of the hospital due to this.”
Many testimonies
In April 2024, the revelations of Karine Lacombe caused many testimonies, in social networks and with professional and student associations, about sexual and gender violence in the health sector. Karine Lacombe had markedly accused the Patrick Pelloux Emergency Chamber of sexual harassment, of the facts she rejects.
However, she did not file a complaint against him, who explains in the daily life of the doctor: “For me, the important thing was not to name people but to denounce moral and sexual harassment in the hospital, illustrating specific facts.” “What was intended was to show dysfunctions linked to the place of women in the hospital,” he adds.
At the end of November 2024, the order of doctors published an investigation into sexual and sexist violence committed by doctors, with the results qualified as “very worrying.”
According to this survey conducted with 21,140 doctors, 54% of them were aware of sexual or sexist violence committed by another doctor, regardless of the victim, among patients, health professionals or another person. And 49% of women interviewed say they have been victims of sexist or sexual violence by another doctor.
Half of the nurses also say that they have been victims of gender -based sexual violence (VSS) as part of their exercise, the author who can be patient, a caregiver, a visitor or a superior, according to an investigation by the order of nurses published in December 2024.
Management to improve
The management of this violence by the hospital departments has evolved, but remains to be improved, according to Karine Lacombe. She points out in particular “proposed solutions” that “are often stigmatizing, because we often ask the victims to change the service, while the attacker often remains in office.”
“There are cases in which, in the face of concordant facts, the aggressor can be temporarily fired. However, it is common for the chiefs of service questioned to be a disease license, which makes the costs for social security and, therefore, the community, which raises questions,” said the infectologist. In more general terms, he asks the State to “accelerate the process, particularly at the judicial level, where the treatment of judicial complaints is too slow.”
In mid -January, the new Minister of Health, Yannick Neuder, announced a global plan against this violence, including the creation of an observatory for sexual and gender violence in the health sector.
Source: BFM TV
