At the trial in Paris of the AP-HP and four officials of the Georges-Pompidou hospital, tried for moral harassment after the suicide of a cardiologist in 2015, the professor’s widow regretted the “disparaging remarks” which had targeted her husband during the investigation. “I am very moved to be able to speak,” said Sophie Mégnien at the helm, who had chosen not to speak publicly since her husband’s death “so that justice can do its job”.
And this, “despite the denigrating remarks on the state of health of my husband, on our couple”, she adds with a trembling voice before the criminal court, about the “accusations” of some of the defendants during the investigation into the reasons for Jean-Louis Mégnien’s suicide. “A lot has been said about my husband,” she says.
In the afternoon of December 17, 2015, this 54-year-old professor of cardiology threw himself out of the window of his office, on the seventh floor of the European Georges-Pompidou Hospital (HEGP). He had returned to work three days earlier, after nine months of sick leave. His wife, also a doctor and who had met her husband at the hospital, as she said at the bar, had quickly filed a complaint and an investigation for moral harassment had been opened.
Abuse and “placardization”
Colleagues of Professor Mégnien had reported his “gradual descent into hell” for two years. The “mistreatment” and “manoeuvres” of his superiors so that the post of head of the cardiovascular preventive medicine department that he coveted escapes him, and the organization of his “placardisation”.
“My husband is no longer there and the people in question have been able to continue their careers quietly”, continues Sophie Mégnien, white pants and loose blue tunic on the back. She speaks under the gaze of their five children, seated on the bench of the civil parties. “Of course it’s very difficult for us to see these people. »
Three superiors implicated
The defendants, three hierarchical superior professors of Jean-Louis Mégnien and the director of the hospital at the time, rose in turn to express at the bar their “compassion” towards the family in the face of this “drama” which has affected the profession. “I never thought, either voluntarily or involuntarily, of having actions that could have been compared to harassment, and I hope that these hearings will allow me to explain myself,” said one of the teachers, Alain S. ., gray suit and thin glasses.
The legal representative of Assistance Publique – Hôpitaux de Paris (AP-HP) did not make a statement. The trial is scheduled until July 7.