At Réunion, the doctors’ association was dissolved after a repressed complaint and an irregular ballot

2024-10-24 19:25:00

A lack D’“impartiality”From “multiple controversies and a climate of strong internal conflicts”a mistrust of national authorities… The list of “dysfunctions” The rebuke of the regional health agency (ARS) to the departmental council of the medical order (CDOM) of Réunion is long.

These protests led, on Wednesday 23 October, the director general of the island’s ARS, Gérard Cotellon, to sign an ordinance dissolving the CDOM, which brings together approximately 3,300 practitioners. “An exceptional decision”explains, however “restore the conditions of trust of doctors on the island of Réunion”.

This dissolution was carried out at the request of the National Council of the Medical Association (CNOM), which had already requested it in 2022, without obtaining it. When contacted, CNOM refused to provide further communications and limited itself to recognizing the exceptional nature of this decision, mentioning only “two precedents known and confirmed by the order”.

Retaliatory measure

In addition to the violent controversies that have been pitting doctors against each other for several years, divided between the majority elected to the CDOM in 2021 and its opposition, two closely intertwined cases have pushed the ARS to react. First, the June 21 elections aimed to renew half of the departmental council. A vote finally canceled by the administrative court of Saint-Denis, on October 17, following irregularities.

Then, the criminal and ordinal complaints launched in 2023 by a general practitioner on the island, Lise François, who accuses her ex-husband, Benjamin Dusang, doctor, who chaired the CDOM from 2021 to June 2024, of domestic violence. the last In the ordinary elections, two couples, including that of Mrs. François, were banned from taking place, by decision of the CDOM. The doctor then reported a retaliatory measure.

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The administrative judges agreed with him, deeming that the two couples had done so “irregularly expelled”. In his decree, of which The world has taken note of this, the ARS believes that the departmental council has refused ” with put under control » of the National Council, which had opposed the rejection of the candidatures of the two couples.

“Relieved”

This election has only accentuated the accusations of the CNOM, which already criticized Réunion officials for having repressed Mrs. François’s complaint of domestic violence against her ex-spouse. Following the complainant’s report, in June 2023, the CDOM “he merely auditioned Dr. Benjamin Dusang”even though he presided over the order on the island, and never heard the complainant, the Ars notes. The CDOM therefore chose not to submit the matter to the Disciplinary Chamber, despite the recommendations of the CNOM.