Health: the Order of Physicians denounces more and more attacks

After 26 years of practice, Sylvie Caillard experienced her first assault two months ago when she had just refused a medical certificate to a patient. “He tapped me on the shoulder, I spun around and at that moment my husband came and was headbutted”, says Sylvie Caillard. After ten days of ITT each, they were able to return to work, but now have apprehension, admits her husband, administrator of the firm: “We are afraid when we arrive in the morning to find someone in front of the door, it is a constant fear.”

They are not the only ones to have experienced such misadventures. More than 1,000 doctors, including two thirds of general practitioners, were attacked in 2021, according to the report of the Order of Physicians published on Tuesday July 26. A figure that is probably underestimated, because few people dare to talk about it or file a complaint. New habits are therefore at work in some firms. “We learn not to take on a patient we don’t know at the end of the day, we learn to open the doors when there are people in the waiting room in case of a problem”, admits Natacha Regensberg de Andreis, general practitioner in Paris. Figures up 23% compared to ten years earlier