Le Scouarnec’s case will raise tough questions for France’s publicly run healthcare system, victims and rights groups say. Despite a conviction for child pornography in 2005, Le Scouarnec continued to work in public hospitals until his arrest in 2017.
The Health Ministry didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Francois, a plaintiff in the case who was 12 when Le Scouarnec allegedly abused him, said he hoped the case would provide some answers from a system that he said failed him.
“I realise I shouldn’t have been operated on by this surgeon,” said Francois, who asked to be identified only by this name. “I feel betrayed by authorities … Why did nobody forbid this surgeon from working with children?”
DIARY DESCRIPTIONS
After discovering Le Scouarnec’s logs in 2017, investigators began tracking down potential victims by matching diary descriptions with hospital records. Although many of the anaesthetised patients had no recollection of the alleged abuse, psychiatrists have documented symptoms of post-traumatic stress in victims, according to court documents.
Mathis Vinet was 10 in 2007 when his father and grandfather drove him to the Quimperle hospital with stomach pain.
The grandfather, Roland Vinet, 78, remembers meeting Le Scouarnec, and thinking nothing of the surgeon’s order that Mathis spend the night alone in the hospital, he told Reuters.
In his diary, Le Scouarnec recalled sexually assaulting a little boy that same day and the following one, inappropriately touching his genitals each time, according to a court document.
Mathis was never the same after the hospital visit, Vinet said, eventually falling into a life of alcohol and drugs. He died of an overdose at 24 in 2021, three years after learning from the police about the abuse he allegedly had suffered, and having flashbacks.
Vinet and his wife, who are plaintiffs in the case, said they believed Mathis took his own life. They blame Le Scouarnec for their grandson’s death.
Reuters couldn’t establish the role the surgeon’s alleged actions played in Mathis’ death.
