“Issues of gender-based and sexual violence in hospitals are proven,” according to former Minister of Health Roselyne Bachelot

“Karine Lacombe’s accusations obviously seem credible to me”said Sunday April 14, on France Inter, the former Minister of Health Roselyne Bachelot, while emergency physician Patrick Pelloux denies the accusations of sexual harassment launched by infectious disease specialist Karine Lacombe.

“She did not make these accusations lightly,” adds Roselyne Bachelot. The head of the infectious diseases hospital department at Saint-Antoine hospital in Paris spoke of a “predator” in the columns of Paris Match, when Patrick Pelloux was head of emergencies at the establishment before 2008.

At the time, Roselyne Bachelot had made the decision to remove Patrick Pelloux from the Saint-Antoine emergency room, for purely moral harassment. The former Minister of Health says she was not made aware of acts of sexual harassment. “The Saint-Antoine officers may have hesitated in 2008 to make accusations of this type, but at that time I did not have any complaints of this type which came back to me, and which would have led me” to make a report to Justice, adds Roselyne Bachelot.