After the accusations of an infectious disease specialist on the actions of a sexual “predatory” emergency doctor, speech is freed in France in the hospital world where, according to professionals, a climate favorable to sexist and sexual violence persists as well as a tradition of ‘omerta.
In a Paris Match investigation published on Wednesday, Karine Lacombe, head of the infectious diseases hospital department at Saint-Antoine hospital in Paris, accused emergency media doctor Patrick Pelloux of “sexual and moral harassment”.
In October, she had already described in a book – without naming him at the time – the “lustful gaze, wandering hands” and the “dominant behavior” of this senior doctor, whose reputation was already “well established” .
Famous in France since the heatwave of 2003 for having alerted the media to the rise in mortality, then as a columnist for Charlie Hebdo and in other media, Patrick Pelloux assured him in Paris Match that he had “never attacked person” but admitted to having been “rude” in the past.
The union of Paris hospital interns launched a call for testimony on Friday.
They are already multiplying on social networks under the hashtag #Metoohopital, a liberation of the words of victims of sexual violence which has begun in France in the cinema sector, the world of politics or that of sport in particular.
And in recent weeks, testimonies of abuses committed within the armed forces have poured in under the hashtag #MeToo of the Armed Forces, pushing the government to announce on Friday the creation of an inspection mission on sexual violence within the military forces. .
Kahina Sadat, vice-president of the National Association of Medical Students (Anemf), confirms that “for 48 hours testimonies have been pouring in”, under the hashtag #Metoohopital. “It’s no surprise,” she said.
An Anemf survey, carried out in 2021, already showed the omnipresence of this violence: 38.4% of female medical students said they had suffered sexual harassment during their hospital internships, 49.7% “sexist remarks”, and 5.2% of “inappropriate gestures”, hands on the buttocks, touching and other “sexual gestures”.
Among the testimonies received: salacious remarks, “for example: ‘You changed for the operating room, I would have preferred you to come naked'”.
“We have been denouncing it for years,” underlines Pauline Bourdin, representative of Fnesi, the main union of nursing students, who also carried out an investigation in 2022.
One in six aspiring nurses said they had been the victim of sexual assault during their training, mainly in hospitals. The victims described unwanted “hands on the thigh”, “massages” or “kisses” from colleagues and supervisors.
“Rifle culture”
Most remain silent because “in the hospital, there is a strong code of silence”, close-knit teams who sometimes “exert strong pressure so that nothing comes out” and “management which sometimes covers up these actions”, adds Ms Bourdin. Students and professionals come to fear for their careers.
Medicine also suffers from “a rifle culture” which “trivializes sex during studies” and “exposes one to sexist humor”, comments Florie Sullerot, president of the National Intersyndicale of General Medicine Interns (ISNAR-IMG) .
In some boarding schools, students eat in front of obscene frescoes, which can depict “even scenes of rape,” she describes. Added to this is a “strong hierarchy”, which generally places power in the hands of men.
All in all, it creates “a favorable climate” for violence, even if the feminization of the profession gradually “liberates” people to speak out.
This omerta, Cécile Andrzejewski, journalist, author of Silence under the blouseexplains it in part because of the dedication that drives some of the staff.
“Let’s imagine a woman who works in a pediatric oncology department, who sees sick children”, she will say to herself: “Yes, my boss is putting his hands on my butt but compared to what my patients are going through, this is not not so serious. There has been a kind of self-sacrifice at the hospital for years,” she reports.
“There is this persistent idea that as we deal with death, with serious things, we should be liberated, without taboo on the body, but suddenly it is no limit “, also analyzes Delphine Giraud, co-president of the national association of orthogenic midwives (ANSFO).
“Sexism and sexual violence have no place in hospitals,” commented Friday on X the Minister of Health Frédéric Valletoux, promising to quickly bring together “associations, employers and professionals” to “work on a global response and firm.”
But “the hospital is a reflection of society” and violence “occurs there as elsewhere”, underlines Dr Rachel Bocher, psychiatrist and president of the inter-union of hospital practitioners INPH. She assures that to date she has not received “a wave or increase in complaints”.