"I don't know what to tell you. It's the emotion, we're all in shock. We still find it hard to believe, it happened to us unfortunately. But it could have happened somewhere else." Yamina Duchatel, deputy secretary general of FO and medical-psychiatrist assistant at Reims University Hospital, is still struggling to find her words to talk about her colleague, who died on the night of Monday to Tuesday.
Carène Mezino, a 37-year-old nurse, was fatally attacked early Monday afternoon in the "Medicine and Occupational Health" unit of the hospital. A medical secretary was also wounded with a knife by the same 59-year-old man, who was immediately arrested.
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Carène Mezino was the mother of two young children. She lived in Ville-en-Tardenois (Marne) and had been working for about ten years at Reims University Hospital, at the medical and occupational health unit where the attack took place. "A lot of us knew Carène. It was part of occupational medicine. So we could all be brought to meet her, "says Yamina Duchatel. The young caregiver had also spent a few years in the hemodialysis department of the CHU.
"Carène Mezino has spent her life in the service of others," paid tribute to the Director General of Reims University Hospital, this Tuesday noon, at the time of a minute of silence within the establishment.
VIDEO - Carène Mézino "spent her life in the service of others," says the director general of Reims University Hospital in the courtyard before the minute of silence pic.twitter.com/DymuDhKbsl
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"We send our deepest condolences to his family, his loved ones, his colleagues," "we share their pain and sorrow," she said.
"The time is now for contemplation"
Monday around 13:30 p.m., before taking office, this state-certified nurse was changing in the cloakroom, on the first floor of the premises of the occupational medicine of hospital staff. That's when she received several stab wounds from her attacker, a 59-year-old Rémois man with a psychiatric history. Carène Mezino died despite "the many hours of care in the operating room and in intensive care," the CHU announced in a statement.
"The aggression of a caregiver is unspeakable, unacceptable," said Tuesday morning the Minister of Health, François Braun, at the annual exhibition of the Hospital Federation of France (FHF), Porte de Versailles in Paris. "Now is the time for contemplation." A minute of silence was observed at 13:30 pm at Reims University Hospital, another will be observed Wednesday at noon, in all hospitals in France.
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The minister, who visited the site on Monday evening, assured that a meeting would be organized in the week with professionals in the sector to implement "all useful measures to preserve the safety and preserve the lives of our caregivers". The president of the FHF, Arnaud Robinet, mayor of Reims, addressed Tuesday his "thoughts" to "the hospital community" as well as the family of the nurse.
The 56-year-old medical secretary who was also assaulted is still hospitalized, but her prognosis is not life-threatening.
