A year of suspended imprisonment was requested on Wednesday by the Nancy Criminal Court against the three caregivers of the CHRU hospital tried for manslaughter after the death of Timéo, 4, which occurred following a probable drug overdose. .
In the spring of 2015, the little boy was admitted to the Nancy University Hospital for leg pain, after falling from a motorbike his father was transporting him on. Struggling to establish a clear diagnosis after three weeks of care in the infant unit, under the supervision of a young intern, the medical team decided to give him colchicine, an anti-inflammatory. During the trial of three nurses from the Nancy hospital center which began yesterday, the establishment of responsibilities was difficult to establish.
“This file is completely beyond me”, “nothing alerted us”, “I do not know”: the three caregivers of the Nancy hospital tried for manslaughter sought Tuesday to clear themselves of possible responsibility in the death by Timeo. “What is striking in this file is that no one assumes or regrets what happened and everyone passes the buck to each other”, regretted the prosecutor in his requisitions, assigning a “level equal responsibility” to the three women.
“I did what I thought was good at that time”, sums up, facing the Nancy Criminal Court, the overwhelmed head of the clinic who had fallen to the task of supervising the medical intern in charge. of Timéo at a time when two of his colleagues were absent. “I was helping him to move forward in this file which is completely beyond me”, explains the head of clinic, about the medical student who had called her to the rescue. Absent at the hearing, the intern obtained the status of assisted witness during the investigation.
The absence of a written prescription
At the heart of the trial, the prescription issued orally by a specialist in pediatric cardiology at the University Hospital of Nancy, whose diplomas had only been partially recognized by France after her departure from Syria. “She was reckless in contenting herself with an oral opinion, by not drawing attention to the dangerousness of the prescribed medication,” said the prosecutor.
The “advice” that the cardiologist claims to have given advised 0.5 mg/day of colchicine, which will turn into 0.5 mg per kilo after leaving the pharmacy, or 16 times the dosage required for such a young patient. “If I had made the slightest mistake, I would take full responsibility and apologize to the parents,” she told the judges. “What happened is dramatic, but I did my job,” also said the nurse who, at the end of the chain, crushed the eight tablets and administered them to the little boy, without questioning his gesture. On the verge of tears, she said it was not at her level as a “little nurse to go and contradict a set of specialists” above her. “All the locks are gone!” “, can only noted Maître Rémi Stéphan, the lawyer for the parents and grandparents of Timéo, civil parties. The prosecutor accused him of his “negligence”.
“Something messy”
On Tuesday and Wednesday, about twenty relatives of the child’s family were present at the hearing, wearing T-shirts bearing the image of the smiling little boy. “It’s a hospital that we thought was safe, seen from Saint-Dié-des-Vosges where we live”: at the end of the day, Timéo’s parents, now separated, take the stand. “We believed in it until the end, even in intensive care”, declared, dignified, Elodie Gaire, the mother of Timéo, who doubts that “the work of questioning has been done” at the CHRU. Too moved, her ex-husband was unable to speak to the audience.
Due to the technical nature of the case, judgment should be reserved at a later date.