14 caregivers were attacked at the Pays de Savoie Private Hospital, in Annemasse. Two men are responsible for this attack and have filed a complaint against the caregivers.
An attack of rare violence. Two brothers aged 24 and 33 presented themselves, Wednesday January 8, around 11 p.m., to the emergency room of the Hôpital Privé des Pays de Savoie (HPPS) in Annemasse, in Haute-Savoie. One of them showed signs of head trauma and the other accompanied him. After “fifteen minutes” of waiting on a stretcher, as reported by Marie Chaplin, deputy director of the HPPS at France Bluethe companion attacked a nurse, insulting her then pushing and pulling her by the hair before being joined by his sidekick on the stretcher. Several members of the nursing staff came to the aid of their colleague, also receiving blows from the two men, who then fled by car.
In all, 14 caregivers were attacked and seven of them were injured, explains the emergency manager, Alexandre De Oliveira: “There are seven paramedical staff, nurses and caregivers who have physical injuries, including me – same, with multiple contusions of the face and all over the body, with a fracture.” The hospital decided to close the doors of its emergency department until Monday morning after this attack. A psychological unit has been set up for staff.
It must be said that emergency services are often overloaded and the wait is long. The nursing staff are regularly subjected to pressure from people who are waiting, although it is more a question of a lack of resources than of the will of the healthcare team. “Managing stress, aggression in emergencies is an integral part of our profession (…) these are things for which we are trained, which we know how to manage very well, in 90% of cases it goes well, we have rarely resort to physical violence, unfortunately here it was not enough,” said Alexandre De Oliveira.
The two attackers in police custody
The two brothers fled by car before the authorities arrived on site, but were arrested the next day, reports BFMTV. They would have presented themselves to the Annemasse police station to file a complaint against the caregivers, for a reason which was not communicated. They were taken into custody. The two men are not known to the courts and several caregivers have announced their wish to file a complaint against them.
The Minister of Health will visit the site on Saturday
I learned with horror that an extremely violent attack had taken place today in the emergency room of the Pays de Savoie Private Hospital in Annemasse.
Attacking caregivers, whose profession aims to care for others, is and will always be intolerable. Hospital teams
— Dr. Yannick Neuder (@yannickneuder) January 9, 2025
The Deputy Minister of Health and Access to Care, himself a doctor, was moved by this “extremely violent” attack, which he described as “intolerable” in a message published on Hospital teams put all their energy into caring for patients, especially in the current context, they deserve our recognition and certainly not an act of violence,” he writes. Yannick Neuder will visit the hospital teams on Saturday and promises “criminal measures to completely condemn these acts”.