The Paris criminal court on Monday acquitted the Assistance publique-Hôpitaux de Paris (AP-HP), which was on trial for "involuntary manslaughter" after the death of Micheline Myrtil in the emergency room of Lariboisière Hospital in 2018, while acknowledging a "fault of negligence" on the part of the institution.
The court ruled that the AP-HP could not be held criminally liable due to the lack of a "certain causal link" between the observed failures and the patient's death.
However, the court made a particularly harsh assessment of the organization of the service that night.
In its ruling, the court held that the management of the AP-HP had committed a "negligent act" by allocating "insufficient resources" to the emergency department in the period preceding the tragedy.
The judges highlighted the "inadequacy of the premises" for the number of visitors and a "chronic lack of staff," difficulties of which management had been informed.
The court noted that the head of emergency services had "directly alerted" Martin Hirsch, then director general, in October 2018, two months before the tragedy, without effective measures being taken.
Micheline Myrtil, a 55-year-old woman from Martinique, admitted for headaches and calf pain on the night of December 17-18, 2018, was placed in a "blind" waiting room.
In this place, the stretchers were arranged in "three rows", making the patients "difficult to see" for the nurses and preventing effective monitoring.
Called under an incorrect identity, wrongly considered to have left and registered as a "runaway" at 01:18, she died there in the early morning from an "invasive meningococcal infection", without supervision or care.
However, the court ruled that it was not "certain" that prompt medical attention would have prevented his death.
Based on expert opinions, the judges noted that this pathology has a mortality rate of "10 to 20%" even with appropriate care.
While the patient had a 75% chance of survival upon arrival, this rate dropped to 50% in the event of septic shock. The court ruled that this "loss of chance" was insufficient to constitute the offense of involuntary manslaughter.
The civil parties' claims were dismissed.
When contacted by AFP after the hearing, the AP-HP representative declined to comment.
Before the deliberation, Me Mario Stasi, lawyer for the institution, had indicated that "AP-HP does not wish to communicate out of respect for the family".
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