Violence against a doctor in Marseille: “Immediate arrests and appearances” are needed for the perpetrators, demands a group

Ten doctors’ unions are appealing to the government following the attack on one of their colleagues two weeks ago in her office in the northern districts of Marseille.

It’s necessary “immediate arrests and appearances in cases of attacks on healthcare workers”, asks Tuesday, August 27 on franceinfo Dr. Arnaud Chiche, president of the Santé en danger collective. Ten doctors’ unions are calling on the government after the assault suffered by one of their colleagues two weeks ago, in her office in the northern districts of Marseille, in the 15th arrondissement. Two people had entered, asking her for a prescription for a third person, and when the practitioner refused, they attacked her.

Doctor Arnaud Chiche believes that there is “a package of essential measures to guarantee the safety of doctors”which, each time, are not “not very complicated things.” The practitioner cites for example a “alert button” present in the offices, which would be according to him a “good solution”. He also believes that it is necessary to put in place the “prioritization of calls from medical practices to the police services”whereas today, he says, “this is not the case”.

Arnaud Chiche calls, “in a more aggressive, more violent society”, to a “firmness of justice which is truly an incentive in the right direction, which encourages not to fall to the wrong side.” According to the president of the Santé en Danger collective, we must ensure that doctors cannot be attacked, these “icons that shouldn’t be touched”like the “firefighters or the police”. In this respect, Arnaud Chiche would like to see the “implementation of an awareness campaign on violence against caregivers”both for “city doctors and for the hospital”.

Finally, Arnaud Chiche adds that the revaluation of general practitioners could also be a solution, “to be able to equip oneself with a secretary, an additional human presence, which is often dissuasive.”