This is a dramatic rebound. The former ER Bayonne Nicolas Bonnemaison condemned there one week to two years suspended sentence for having caused the death of a patient at end of life, tried to commit suicide this Saturday, October 31. His prognosis is still committed.
The doctor, 54, was found unconscious in a vehicle, in the municipality of Tosse in the Landes, near Dax, on a dirt road in near the forest, apparently after taking drugs. These are joggers, intrigued by turning the engine of a vehicle, that gave little warning before 10:00. According to France Info, the car’s muffler was also reportedly blocked. Nicolas Bonnemaison was transported by helicopter to the University Hospital of Bordeaux. Another source familiar with the matter, his condition at this time would be stabilizing.
There are seven days ago, Nicolas Bonnemaison was sentenced on appeal by the Court of Assize Angers, for deliberately caused the death of a patient of 86 years in April 2011, two days after his hospitalization following a hemorrhagic stroke that had plunged into a coma.
trials Bonnemaison: the doctor and death
In a publicized trial in the heart of the issues concerning the end of life, the former emergency room had instead been acquitted six other cases of patients also incurable and end of life, which he was also accused of having committed suicide. This appeal, like the first trial of the doctor, had revealed the personality of this man, “hyper-compassionate” according to one expert, and “broken mentally and physically,” after the confirmation of his radiation, according a close.
“Being hyper-compassionate is exempt itself from other”
Nicolas Bonnemaison always wanted to be a doctor. A passion forged with his father, a surgeon and clinical director at Hasparren, near Bayonne, and his mother a nurse. In 1989 graduated from the Faculty of Medicine at Bordeaux, he joined the Hospital of the Basque Coast (CHCB) in Bayonne. Earlier he shows interest for patients at end of life. He devoted his thesis to “palliative care and end of life support.” But the doctor has always denied being an “activist euthanasia”.
This small brown large round glasses finally chose a career emergency physician, while participating in the creation of a palliative care service at the Bayonne hospital. In 2004, he integrates the short hospitalization unit (UHCD). It was there between March 2010 and July 2011, it will shorten, prosecutors said, the lives of seven patients.
“This is about an introvert who tends to keep things to himself -even. He has a special interest, passion for the end of life. Nothing pathological, but a very intense sensitivity with a factor, hyper-identification with others “, explained the expert psychiatrist Roland Countanceau at trial at first instance, in June 2014, in Pau.
This is why he did it in secret. [...] He wanted to take upon himself the weight of the other, that of the family and caregivers. Nicolas Bonnemaison is compassionate to others, hyper-compassionate. Hyper-Being compassionate is exempt itself from others. Which hurt this man is not lucid enough compassion. “
” I acted as a doctor to the end of the end “
Described as” closed ” by colleagues, faced Assize Court in its decisions on solitary patients, the doctor probably experienced the most difficult time of the first trial when Peter Iramuno, son of a deceased patient, sent him to his face incomprehension: “You have told me nothing.”
“I generated the suffering in trying to save you,” replied the doctor of a sad, quiet voice
<. h5> I have acted as a doctor I see. I think this is part of the duty of the doctor to accompany patients to the end of the end. “
” Your will was not to do wrong [...] but to do good, under the law you have done evil, “summed Marc married for the prosecution, claiming five years in prison, with a possible reprieve, during this first trial. The doctor will be acquitted at trial.
“I have never made any attempt suicide”
But this trial was also provided a glimpse into the personality of fragility or route of Dr. Bonnemaison, starting with the suicide of his father in 1987, which marks the young Nicolas, 26 years old at the time, to the point that, depressive, he suspends his studies a year. In 2009 he again suffers from depression, which will force him to be followed for two years. Some point to suicide attempts. But denies him outright during the appeal trial in October 2015 in Angers.
“We saw strong things with patients at end of life, things that mark the doctor,” but ” appear as a criminal, a murderer, a poisoner, it’s violent, “he had nevertheless admitted during the first trial.
Several psychiatric experts had stressed during the call, the absence of “pathological dimension” in the personality of Nicolas Bonnemaison, who was not “clinically depressed” at the time, despite “a little anxiety net” but a fragility almost “banal”. Had assured him “ashamed of not having what he did.”
We can not wait idly for it to happen. We can not let these patients die without doing anything when we have the opportunity to reduce their suffering. “
At the end of the trial and despite its two-year sentence suspended sentence, his lawyers, Benoit Ducos-Ader me and Arnaud Dupin, had described their client as “relieved, because for him it is the end of this judicial ordeal.”
The former ER was not also not appealed to the Court of Cassation. His colleague, Dr. Frederic Chaussoy, prosecuted for having, in 2003, helped to die Vincent Humbert, before being granted a dismissal, claims to have spoken to him on the phone Thursday. He was then told that he had, as he himself had done, write a book.
“Patients are my life”
But if the doctor seemed less collapsed at this second trial, Dr. Frederic Chaussoy himself had felt Nicolas Bonnemaison “very isolated” and probably affected no longer perform.
He also said the last day the trial, that it is the sick who lacked … “
Indeed, the last words of the doctor before the verdict had been for his patients:
I just want to finish this morning by saying: medicine, this is my life, patients are my life and I miss them “
He was, in the process, raised the last patient he had treated the. August 10, 2011:
I was studying it when you picked me up. I hope this was not the last patient of my life. I acted doctor and I tell you with great sincerity. “
” What matters is that he finds his white coat “
This issue Radiation is central to the doctor’s case. Radiata officially by the College of Physicians in July 2014, just days after his acquittal, the doctor had described it as a disavowal “great suffering” which he “hardly gives.”
Describing the first trial Nicolas Bonnemaison a “broken mentally and physically,” Dr. Frederic Chaussoy, a member of the support committee, had revolted against the radiation.
I went through, but I’ve never been struck off, I continued to work. But, he is nothing. “
” What matters is that he finds his white coat, although it will never be the same man, “had also launched the lawyers of the doctor, after the acquittal of their client.
” Another battle begins, “one that will allow it of “power practice medicine”, had they launched at the time. They had then appealed the decision of the Order, but this had been confirmed by the State Council, despite the acquittal of the doctor in the first instance. Nicolas Bonnemaison’s lawyers had indicated that their client would seize the College of Physicians for a review of its radiation. An appeal against this radiation is also for the European Court of Human Rights.
“If one day I am unable to choose my end, I hope to deal with a human doctor like you.” “Let’s cross our fingers that strong survive.” “All colleagues do – or do do – Doctor Courage, do not abandon us.” This Saturday, on the internet, the doctor were numerous messages of support on the dedicated Facebook page.
February Renaud
