So the patient didn't show up for an appointment, and the psychiatrist is held responsible? That sounds like the psychiatrist was scapegoated, to me.
I wonder if the French still confine the mentally ill in hospitals. If they do what we do--throw the mentally ill out on the streets, mostly to live like rats, and sometimes to commit violent crimes--then I really don't see the basis for punishing the psychiatrist. Her hands would be tied as far as removing a violent psychopath from society.
Seems related:
Oct 22, 2012 ... ROME — Seven prominent Italian earthquake experts were convicted of
manslaughter on Monday and sentenced to six years in prison
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/23/world/europe/italy-convicts-7-for-failure-to-warn-of-quake.html
I could never imagine such things to happen anywhere in my lifetime.
And not only that, the courts decided Gaillard was not responsible for his actions and decided not to confine him, just as the psychiartrist had decided!
De-institutionalization was a broad western phenomenon. When my sister was in school studying for psychiatry, she did a report on the man responsible for it in Italy who brought attention to the horrible state mental institutes were in.
While it was horrific that Western nations like Italy were chaining people to beds and leaving them in rooms in a drugged stupor 24 hours a day as late as the 60s, the response of abolishing them outright was an over-correction that has had a lot of negative social consequences.
It is how socialism works,you find innocent people who where at the wrong placer and at the wrong time and you lock them up.It keeps the rest of the population on their toes.
If they’re looking to lockup anyone who goes to a psychiatrist to get mental counseling,which is not a crime as that person is admitting they need mental help then they are making a grave mistake.People aren’t going to look to get help if it means they can loss everything.