The Minister of Health made the announcement on Tuesday morning. The 37-year-old nurse attacked on Monday May 22 at the Reims university hospital center (CHU) succumbed to her injuries.
“I have just learned with immense sadness of the death of Carène, a 38-year-old nurse violently attacked yesterday at the CHU de Reims, writes François Braun. My thoughts are with his loved ones, his colleagues, as well as all the hospital teams bereaved this morning. The head of government, Elisabeth Borne, expressed "great sadness".
The public prosecutor of Reims, Matthieu Bourrette, explained Tuesday morning that this nurse had died "in the middle of the night" and that "the facts alleged against the person in custody" had been "reclassified as assassination". "The autopsy has been scheduled," he added.
In memory of this dead caregiver, despite "the many hours of care in the operating theater and in intensive care", a minute of silence will be observed at 1:30 p.m. in the hospital, announced the CHU in a press release. Mr. Braun also called for a "minute of silence in tribute" to the slain nurse to be observed at noon on Wednesday in all hospitals.
The Minister, who went to the Reims hospital on Monday evening, assured that a meeting would be organized during the week with professionals in the sector in order to implement "all the useful measures to preserve the safety and preserve the lives of our caregivers".
The suspect was dismissed "for criminal irresponsibility" in June
On Monday, the suspect, a 59-year-old man suffering from "severe" psychiatric disorders and under reinforced curatorship, attacked with a knife a medical secretary and a nurse in the occupational medicine and health department of the Reims University Hospital. On Monday evening, the 56-year-old medical secretary was released from the operating room.
The respondent, quickly arrested after trying to flee, "seems to have acted without apparent motive, especially since he had no appointment in this service", according to the prosecutor. He assaulted the two women "while they were in a locker room," he continued.
This man was taken into custody, and the investigation was entrusted to the central police station in Reims. He had been dismissed in June 2022 "for criminal irresponsibility" after being "indicted in Châlons-en-Champagne for acts of aggravated violence", added the prosecutor. The latter clarified: "This file was soon to be referred to the investigating chamber of the Reims Court of Appeal to rule on the security measures likely to be taken. »
"Intolerable violence"
The French Hospital Federation recalled that "this aggression" was part "in a more general context marked, in recent years, by several acts of physical or verbal violence in public hospitals".
“Unfortunately, caregivers are increasingly targeted by acts of violence. Thirty-seven percent of health professionals say they have been victims in the last year. This violence in health care settings, as in Reims, is absolutely intolerable, ”reacted the president of the Federation of Private Hospitalization, Lamine Gharbi.
The second union in the sector, Force Ouvrière, called for "strong political acts, means for the hospital" after "this monstrous act", denouncing "the catastrophic situation of the care of the mentally ill in our psychiatric establishments".
"This is one of the most intense dramas that can affect our nation. We are talking about someone who devotes his life to protecting, to saving the lives of others and who dies violently,” government spokesman Olivier Véran told France Inter.
"I don't know if one can associate the a priori act of being unbalanced with the rise in general violence that all holders of a form of state authority face," he said. , while inviting us to "question ourselves on a form of continuum between the violence of social networks, the verbal violence to which the political class sometimes indulges and these everyday acts of violence which can affect everyone".
"The drama of the CHU de Reims affects the entire nation", reacted on Twitter the president of the National Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet.
Expressing his "emotion" after this "terrifying murder", the boss of the Republicans, Eric Ciotti, for his part, asked on BFM-TV / RMC "a great psychiatry plan" facing a sector according to him "completely neglected in our society", which suffered from a "cruel collapse of means, affected beds".
While incivility is frequent in hospitals, serious assaults on nursing staff in health establishments remain relatively rare.
Among the latest cases, in February, five staff members were injured by a patient in the emergency room of the Ambroise-Paré hospital in Boulogne (Hauts-de-Seine). In September 2020, people in the emergency department of Robert-Debré Hospital in Paris were injured by a "clearly drunk" man and in January 2019, a patient assaulted three staff members in the emergency room of Saint-Debré Hospital. Anthony in Paris.
The most serious attacks have taken place in mental institutions. In April 2002, a nurse at the psychiatric hospital in Bron (Rhône) was fatally stabbed by a 19-year-old man being treated for schizophrenia. In December 2004, a nurse and a caregiver at the psychiatric hospital in Pau (Pyrénées-Atlantiques) were killed during their night on duty by a 21-year-old former patient, also suffering from schizophrenia.
