Law enforcement said four complaints have been filed, including three from doctors for assault.
At least three doctors from the Martinique University Hospital have filed a complaint for assault after being attacked on Tuesday, February 1 in the morning by demonstrators opposed to the obligation to vaccinate caregivers, dozens of whom decided to exercise their right. withdrawal, according to local sources. “We were all prevented from passing, I have an assistant who tried to return by detours, he was copiously heckled in his car”, told AFP a doctor, on condition of anonymity, stating that he had decided to exercise his right of withdrawal like many of his colleagues.
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From dawn, barriers made up of rubble and garbage cans had been positioned on one of the access roads to the Pierre Zobda Quitman hospital in Fort-de-France. Twenty demonstrators, mostly dressed in black and hooded, blocked access to the CHU to nursing staff, patients and deliveries. Representatives of unions (USAM and UGTM) were notably present, said the management of the CHUM. According to the doctor, threats were made against several doctors and one of them was physically attacked, hit in the neck.
The police indicated that four complaints had already been filed following these incidents, including three from doctors for assault. The fourth complaint was filed by a police officer. According to Guillaume Mauger, territorial director of the national police of Martinique, this civil servant of Asian origin suffered racist and xenophobic insults from one of the “union leaders”. The prefecture of Martinique has since set up “until further notice” a police security device at the CHUM.
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The management of the CHU and the Regional Health Agency of Martinique strongly condemned these incidents. The ARS specified that it had ended “to any process of discussion (…) with the trade unions”. For its part, the health inter-union said in a press release that “two doctors driving their vehicle (had) dark on the agents mobilized “. The Fort-de-France police, responsible for investigating, have now qualified these remarks as “liars”. “When you are surrounded by ten to twenty people, very excited, who hit the body of your car and insult you (…). The doctors were scared but at no time did they run into the officers or force a roadblock., assured Guillaume Mauger.
Martinique has been agitated for several months by a crisis born of the refusal of the vaccination obligation for caregivers and firefighters, but the movement then extended to political and social demands, in particular against the high cost of living, and caused violence, looting and fires.