Geneva
An investigation targets a doctor. The prosecution counts eight victims. He categorically denies.
The practitioner would have had inappropriate gestures during several consultations.
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A Geneva gynecologist is facing criminal proceedings. Several patients accuse him of having abused them. Accused of acts of a sexual nature committed on a person incapable of resistance, or even of sexual coercion, he has already served six months of pre-trial detention between May and October 2019. Presumed innocent but banned from practicing during the investigation, he is now ‘hui free pending trial.
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“In a state of shock”
The bulk of the facts retained by the prosecution would have occurred in 2018 and 2019. The prosecution listed eight victims, most of them in their forties. Four complained of inappropriate and insistent touching of their bodies or genitals. “Paralyzed and paralyzed during the sexual assault, they left the office in shock and in tears, observed by several witnesses,” explains Me Robert Assaël, who defends two of them. Their trauma continues to this day. It cannot be invented! ” He judges their credibility “total” since they did not know each other and had no reason to blame the accused.
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#MeToo and the times
The practitioner, for his part, strongly contests the facts. His defense refers to strictly medical acts diverted from their intention. “The profession of gynecologist is one of those most at risk when it is exercised by a man”, notes his lawyer Me Yaël Hayat (who works in duet with Me Cédric Kurth), referring to the spirit of the times , discussions with doctors and observing the disaffection of male students for the specialty (see box). “Doctors won’t even dare to do a breast palpation to detect cancer, it’s serious!” In short, while the gestures of an obstetrician by nature relate to sexuality, the problem arises when a patient misinterprets them or is influenced, the time or even the context being likely to induce a particular feeling, she does. “It is a drift relayed by the public prosecutor who even retained as a sexual act a hand placed on a shoulder blade!”
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But to the question of whether the doctor would be somehow a victim of the #MeToo movement, Me Robert Assaël protested. “Is it normal for a gynecologist to masturbate the clitoris of one patient, stroke the buttocks and thighs of another during the ultrasound, fiddle with the labia minora of a third, while asking inappropriate and intrusive questions about their sex life and their partner? Certainly not! ”
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Gynecology attracts women
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In Switzerland, in general, the proportion of women among practicing physicians is increasing. According to the FMH (the Federation of Swiss Doctors), they were 20% in 2000, and 40% in 2018. The phenomenon is even more true in gynecology, with 28% of women in 2000 and 63% in 2018. Moreover and still nationally, from 2011 to 2018, 84% of university degrees in the specialty were awarded to women.
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Not the United States, but …
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Representative of gynecologists at the Association of Geneva Doctors, Ana Godinho Lourenco also notes that in proportion, more and more women practice this specialty. It explains in large part by the massive accession of women to university studies. “For a long time now, there have been more and more female doctors”. She believes that in Switzerland, the time (#MeToo, etc.) does not complicate the task of his male colleagues that much. “It’s much less important than in the United States. But it is clear that many of my colleagues are sensitive to possible problems and will never make a consultation without the presence of their assistant. ” She also believes that any social pressure is unlikely to induce botched examinations. “All gestures are very coded, we are not going to miss out on diseases. And we are not at all in a dynamic where we are not doing enough, but rather too much. ”
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