After the accusations of an infectious disease specialist on the actions of a sexual “predatory” emergency doctor, speech is freed in the hospital world where, according to professionals, a climate favorable to sexist and sexual violence persists as well as a tradition of secrecy. .
Stories are multiplying on social networks under the hashtag #Metoohopital. They are nurses, caregivers, doctors or even members of the hospital administrative staff, and today no longer hesitate to talk about the attacks to which they have been victims.
“Breast groping, forced kissing in elevators…”
Among the testimonies, salacious remarks, for example: “You changed for the operating room, I would have preferred if you came naked” or inappropriate behavior such as “hands on the thigh”, “massages” or even unwanted “kisses”…
“I was an intern then an outpatient in the 90s. I experienced my share of inappropriate gestures and attacks (breast groping, forced kisses in elevators), but what weighed on me the most was the climate permanent micro-aggressions with complete impunity,” explains Doc Intubator on the X platform (formerly Twitter).
“He followed me to the locker room and tried to kiss me”
Several women also wanted to provide their testimonies to AFP. “That day, I was on duty in the maternity ward,” remembers Sara*, 34, a nurse. In 2017, the 27-year-old young woman was a temporary nurse in a hospital in Seine-Saint-Denis. “I needed a doctor and I went to find the intern. I had seen him before and he seemed friendly enough.” But on the way, between two swinging doors, “he grabbed my butt”. “He said to me something along the lines of “a la queuleuleu” to make it seem like a game. I was stunned, I remained frozen, I couldn’t do anything,” the nurse remembers.
“For my first time in the operating room, I asked where I should stand and the anesthetist showed me a place,” says Sandrine*, a nursing assistant, who worked in an establishment in Normandy. “He ‘rubbed’ me during a whole part of the operation. I was barely 30 years old, I was paralyzed.”
A few years later, she is in the ENT department. “The surgeon was known to have affairs with student nurses, he told everything in detail. One Sunday morning, when it was quiet, he asked me to go get him a blouse. He followed me to the locker room and tried to kiss me. I threw the blouse rack at him and I ran away,” Sandrine also says.
“He managed to pin me against the wall and grabbed me by the neck”
Julia* also describes what she experienced while she was an intern. “We were doing a medical examination. Suddenly the doctor starts gesticulating, rubbing against my chest and it messes up my blouse a little,” explains the young woman. She doesn’t let anything show in front of the forty-year-old, who uses the excuse of a joke seen on television. He ends up apologizing, under pressure from his female colleagues. Today, she says she is very surprised by this gesture on the part of a rather “benevolent” doctor despite “his fierce wit” and “his salacious jokes”.
Elisa*, a switchboard operator, also testifies to the events she suffered ten years ago. “I worked at night in a room a little far from the main hospital building. An anesthesiologist came to see me and offered me several things to eat. He was drunk and I refused.” The doctor, on duty, returns to his post before returning to the charge. “He managed to pin me against the wall and grabbed me by the neck and forcibly kissed me. I backed away, but he came at me and continued: I saw no way out, I was panicking.” She was eventually saved when an alarm went off. A few days later, unable to sleep, on sick leave, she took too many sleeping pills and ended up in the emergency room.
*The first names have been changed at the request of the women testifying.