Latest news with #hôpital
Washington Post
10-07-2025
- Health
- Washington Post
Burkina Faso's only eye doctor for children sees the trauma of both play and conflict
BOBO-DIOULASSO, Burkina Faso — Isaka Diallo was playing with friends when a stone struck his left eye. For two weeks, his parents searched hospitals in western Burkina Faso for an eye doctor. The village clinic only prescribed painkillers. Other health workers did not know what to do. When they eventually found Dr. Claudette Yaméogo, Burkina Faso's only pediatric ophthalmologist, the injury had become too difficult to treat.
Telegraph
08-07-2025
- Telegraph
Bees attack French town, leaving dozens injured
A swarm of bees attacked a French town on Sunday, leaving dozens of people injured and three in a critical condition in hospital. In an incident lasting around 30 minutes, 24 people were stung in the centre of Aurillac, in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, authorities said. A 78-year-old man suffered a cardiac arrest after being stung 25 times. He was later revived and is now in a stable condition. Emergency services, including police, medical teams and firefighters, rushed to the scene to treat the injured and cordon off the area. One mother said she was returning home with her three-year-old daughter when she heard shouting and panic. She was stung four times in the neck while trying to flee. 'There were a lot of bees, there were old people on the ground. It's the first time I've seen that,' she told French radio station RMC. An 80-year-old woman, who lives by the square where the attack happened, described the chaos. 'I saw two young women and a couple shaking each other. I saw a young woman in her bra and panties, she didn't know how to handle this problem,' she told France Info. 'I got the impression they were being assaulted by something but I didn't know what.' The bees reportedly appeared from a rooftop apiary on the terrace of the Grand Hôtel de Bordeaux, near Place du Square. Pierre Mathonier, the town's mayor, said: 'One theory seems to hold water… Asian hornets must have threatened the hive, which provoked the bees' aggression. These aggressive bees spread to Avenue de la République and attacked passers-by.' However, some experts cast doubt on that theory. Mickaël Henry, the director of the bees and environment research team, told the Libération newspaper: 'When faced with a hornet, bees generally tend to stop going out and protect the entrance of the hive.' Walid Loulidi, a master beekeeper at the Paris School of Beekeeping, gave another possible explanation. He said that breeding black bees with other species – a strategy used to increase honey production – could result in changes in behaviour over time. The rooftop apiary has been moved since the incident, and Mr Mathonier said he was considering banning them in the town. The Aurillac prosecutor's office said it was requesting the destruction of the 70,000 bees in the area.
News.com.au
28-05-2025
- Health
- News.com.au
French court to rule on surgeon who abused children for decades
A French court is to give its verdict Wednesday in the trial of a surgeon who admitted to sexually abusing hundreds of patients over more than two decades, in one of the country's largest child sex abuse cases. Joel Le Scouarnec, 74, is already in prison after being sentenced in 2020 to 15 years for raping and sexually assaulting four children, including two of his nieces. In this trial, which began in February, he has admitted sexually assaulting or raping 299 patients -- 256 of them under 15 -- in hospitals in western France between 1989 and 2014, many while they were under anaesthesia or waking up after operations. Le Scouarnec is charged with 111 rapes and 189 sexual assaults and is set to emerge as one of the most prolific convicted sex predators in France's history. The victims have been represented by around 60 lawyers. "I hope the verdict will be commensurate with the horrors he committed," Amelie Leveque, one of the victims, told AFP. "But I don't believe it very much." Victims and child rights advocates say the surgeon's case highlights systemic shortcomings that allowed Le Scouarnec to repeatedly commit sexual crimes. Prosecutor Stephane Kellenberger has requested the maximum 20-year sentence for the retired surgeon and also made the rare demand that he should be held in a centre for treatment and supervision even after any release due to his "dangerousness". In France, sentences are not added together, unlike in the United States where Le Scouarnec would have been jailed for "2,000 years", said the prosecutor. - 'Major pervert' - "I am not asking the court for leniency," Le Scouarnec said in his closing statement in Vannes in the western region of Brittany on Monday. "Simply grant me the right to become a better person," he said. The verdict, which will be handed down by presiding judge Aude Buresi, is expected to be announced from 2:30 pm (1230 GMT). One of the lawyers, Maxime Tessier, has asked the court to take into account the "exceptional" nature of Le Scouarnec's confession when he admitted all the charges against him in March. The retired surgeon also said he considered himself "responsible" for the death of two of his victims -- Mathis Vinet, who died after an overdose in 2021 in what his family says was suicide, and another man who was found dead in 2020. Le Scouarnec documented his crimes, noting his victims' names, ages, addresses and the nature of the abuse. In his notes, the doctor described himself as a "major pervert" and a "paedophile". "And I am very happy about it," he recorded. - 'Never again' - While Le Scouarnec has asked his victims for forgiveness, many of them have questioned the sincerity of his apologies, which he repeated almost mechanically over the weeks of the trial, sometimes word for word. "You are the worst mass paedophile who ever lived," said one of the lawyers representing the victims, Thomas Delaby, describing Le Scouarnec as an "atomic bomb of paedophilia". The victims "will never forgive you. Never," Delaby told the defendant. "Who are you trying to convince that you've changed?" said another lawyer, Delphine Caro. "Admitting everything is admitting nothing," added a third lawyer, Giovanni Bertho-Briand. The surgeon practised for decades until his retirement in 2017 despite a 2005 sentence for owning sexually abusive images of children and colleagues raising their concerns. Le Scouarnec might stand trial again in the future, the public prosecutor said. Prosecutors opened two investigations, one of which concerns unidentified or newly reported victims of Le Scouarnec. There has been frustration among some that the trial has not had the impact in France they hoped for. The case has not won the attention given to the case of Dominique Pelicot, who was jailed last year for recruiting dozens of strangers to rape his now ex-wife Gisele. But Health Minister Yannick Neuder said on Wednesday he would work with Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin to ensure that "never again will we find ourselves in a situation where patients and vulnerable children" are exposed to predators. A collective of the survivors is set to meet with Neuder in June.
