Head of the radiotherapy department of the CHU, the sixty-year-old was also a regional adviser to the majority. Doctor Bons put on his gown full time.
From her parents, Françoise Bons retained a guideline: “You speak if you know “. An injunction to humility, coupled with an obligation of integrity.
In Rabat in Morocco, the family is anchored with her grandparents, she a little seamstress with golden fingers but not knowing how to read or write, he died prematurely of a tumor for having transmitted x-rays to patients at a time when caregivers’ protections do not exist.
Radiology? Not far from the profession of Françoise Bons, a specialist in radiotherapy for cancer patients, who will be treated in Nîmes thanks to her stubbornness as discreet as it is constant.
Big workers and intellectuals
As a teenager, she dreams of being a nurse, but her parents push her to go further. The family arrived in Montpellier in 1965, mom and dad are university students, specializing in physio-pathology for one, and in the study of vertebrates for the other.
Big workers and intellectuals who have to fight to make their place at the university. The family has few external relations and the five children must give their best in their studies. Françoise prepares for the medical competition and is passionate about cancer surgery.
The “bosses” are then called Solassol and Joyeux. “We came back on Saturdays to listen to these big bosses, and then we had a moral contract with the patients we followed, who confided in us. We couldn’t let them go,” she remembers.
1988, radio underwater
Alongside the Samu, she discovered great social misery in the suburbs of Montpellier. “Medicine opened my eyes to a whole section of society that I was unaware of”. A year of internship at Alès obliges him to discover different aspects of the profession.
“I didn’t want surgery, because of the smells. Radiotherapy was straightforward, it seemed for me. I didn’t imagine all the obstacles…” They are legion, however, starting with his head of department who forbids him to train in parallel to medical oncology.
Stubborn, she takes the night train and goes, on her rest, to learn at Gustave-Roussy in Paris. Even if it means hearing oneself say on the way back “How are you having fun?” Mandarins are not very open, especially when it is necessary to make room for a woman.
She, who dreamed of Val d’Aurelle in Montpellier, found herself in Nîmes on May 2, 1988. On October 3, the rue Hoche hospital was under water and the radiology equipment submerged. “At that time, we were under the tutelage of Montpellier and some hoped that we would be ruined, there was such competition.”
If you stop, Nîmes will never be a CHU
Françoise Bons fights, loses 8 kilos in six months, works constantly, ends up relying on neighboring clinics, Sainte-Catherine in Avignon, the Valdegour clinic where she is loaned machines between noon and two.
“There were still some visionary people who told me ‘if you stop, Nîmes will never be a university hospital.” And then how could I stop giving rays to my patients? must go to Montpellier? “.
A strong team
In 1991, Carémeau 1 was inaugurated, it took 13 years before installing a second bunker for the machines. “All this took a lot of time, but we must remember that at one time, the Nîmes bourgeoisie did not come to the hospital, and preferred to seek treatment in the private sector. ”
Oncology is evolving, Françoise Bons surrounds herself with a solid team: “I love working with young people, who are open. Specialists in pulmonology, ENT, urology have started to take a close interest in our work…”
Disappointment
Head of the radiotherapy department at the CHU, she supervises 48 people. On duty at 7:30 a.m., she sometimes treats a patient, who spots her. Damien Alary sees in this doctor, not politically committed but viscerally attached to the public hospital, a potential future elected.
“I do not work in the liberal sector, I am 100% public service, and I define myself as a republican”, says the one who lets herself be tempted by adventure. “Food, health, were themes that interested me, my children pushed me, flattered that they come to seek me. I thought that I could act”.
One term later, disappointment wins out. Françoise Bons considers that she was not accompanied, but that she was very often called upon to represent President Delga here and there.
She was alone to represent the Region, it was too hard
“It’s true that she gave a lot of energy. Humanly, she is great, full of empathy, it is politically that she was a little fair, especially in the territory of the agglomeration of Nîmes. was alone to represent the Region, it was too hard “, says a community observer.
Another evokes “la grinding machine“policy for which she was neither prepared nor helped. At 63, her two children aged 28 and 30 in professional lives far removed from medicine, Doctor Bons found his patients and his team, vaccinated from Politics.
“She honored her mandate”
The regional councilor PS Fabrice Verdier knew Françoise Bons on the benches of the Region.
“A beautiful meeting. She is someone who has undeniable human qualities, recognized by all. She has surely done a lot of work in the shadows that has not been seen. She has honored her mandate but, perhaps, to be, she did not know how to put herself forward as would have done people having more the codes… In any case, not requesting it again was a sanction “, ensures the regional elected representative who evokes a lack of explanation.
The previous mandate also saw some regional advisers in the Gard region being less (or no longer at all) present in the field: Jean Denat, Nelly Frontaneau, Ferdinand Jaoul or Damien Alary certainly played the role of representation less and often, it is Françoise Bons that the president’s office requested.
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