Marie-Pierre Mazzaggio is suing a hospital near Paris for culpable neglect. Her mother, 83-year-old Josette, died two weeks after spending 44 hours in a corridor of the hospital’s emergency room. Marie-Pierre is “determined” and “ready to go to the limit”, she tells the newspaper ‘Le Parisien’. The French public prosecutor’s office has launched an investigation.
JV
30 Jan. 2023
Latest update:
12:52
Source:
Le Parisien, BFMTV
On the eve of December 19 last year, Josette suffers from oxygen problems and is transferred to the Simone-Veil hospital in Eaubonne in the French department of Val-d’Oise, about 20 km above Paris. Daughter Marie-Pierre, from Beauchamp also in Val-d’Oise, arrives there herself around 9 pm. “I found her in a corridor of the hospital,” Marie-Pierre told BFMTV. “She only had a sheet over her and I asked for a blanket, but they told me they didn’t have any. So I put my down jacket on her so she could get a little warm.”
After waiting 24 hours, Josette gets to see a doctor. That whole day, the 83-year-old woman is not changed and she only eats compote, writes ‘Le Parisien’. The doctor determines that Josette’s health condition is alarming and that she needs to be admitted. But there is no bed available in the geriatric department for Josette, the doctor later reports. And so Josette has to go back to her nursing home on December 21 in the afternoon. The trauma she suffered in the hospital left her weakened. She refused to eat and died on January 4. “My mom has always been a fighter, always positive, always going the extra mile. But this was a trigger for her to say ‘I don’t want anymore’,” Marie-Pierre told BFMTV.
LOOK. “This was a trigger for her to say ‘I don’t want anymore’,” Marie-Pierre told BFMTV
Josette should have spent a total of 44 hours in the emergency department and that is not possible, Marie-Pierre thinks. “I want the shortcomings and neglect of vulnerable people like my mother to be recognized,” she told Le Parisien. “It is 2023, here in France we have an advanced hospital system. Letting an 83-year-old woman lie on a stretcher, without a blanket, for 44 hours, that is not possible. We need to expose this kind of thing.”
Marie-Pierre is suing the hospital for “failing to provide assistance to a person who is unable to protect himself”. This carries a prison sentence of five years and a fine of 75,000 euros. The public prosecutor of Pontoise has opened an investigation.
Free unlimited access to Showbytes? Which can!
Log in or create an account and don’t miss a thing of the stars.