Infections nosocomiales en médecine de ville : inéquité pour les victimes

The system used for compensating victims of nosocomial infections resulting from the laws of March 4 and December 30, 2002 is very positive, both in terms of the rules used to define the liability regimes and the procedure used by CRCIs (Regional Commissions for Conciliation and Compensation for Medical Accidents, Iatrogenic Disorders and Nosocomial Infections). However, it seems necessary to make some adjustments. Recent laws bound healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals to a different liability regime. While judicial case law prior to the law of March 4 bound clinics and independent practitioners to the same objective liability regime for a breach of duty in providing a safe outcome, infections occurring following care given in medical practitioners' offices are now excluded from the ex officio liability regime laid down in Article L. 1142-1 of the public health code, and fall under the fault-based liability regime. A victim of healthcare-associated infection contracted during an intervention carried out in an independent clinic can only receive compensation if said victim can establish the occurrence of a breach, while the same victim would have received ex officio compensation if the same intervention had been performed in a healthcare facility. Bearing in mind that certain invasive medical acts do not require hospitalization, this difference in the treatment of victims who have undergone the same act raises the question of the need to widen the ex officio liability regime to infections contracted in practitioners' offices.