The patient

Medications

If you’re already taking medication before being hospitalised, you must report this to the medical team.

Person of trust

As part of France’s Loi du 4 mars 2002 regarding the rights of the sick and the quality of healthcare, you may appoint a person of trust (parent, friend, doctor), freely chosen by you and in whom you have total confidence, to accompany you throughout the care and decisions to be made during your stay.
Designation of the person of trust: This designation must be submitted in writing and is revocable at any time. Your person of trust may be different from your main contact.

Advance directives

All adult-aged persons may, if they so desire, issue advance directives (French document) in the event that they are unable to express their wishes. These guidelines indicate their wishes regarding the conditions for limiting or discontinuing treatment.
The directives will be consulted prior to the medical decision and their content prevails over any other non-medical opinion. They can be cancelled or modified at any time during their validity.
If you want your directives to be taken into account, please provide them to the doctor who takes care of you in the establishment: either submit them directly or notify the doctor of their existence while providing the contact information of the person to whom you have entrusted them.

*Excerpt from the Léonetti law, allowing any adult to draft advance directives, whether hospitalised or not. France’s Loi du 22 avril 2005 regarding the rights of patients and end of life.

Patients who are minors or under supervision

Information concerning the health of minors and adults under supervision and the care they must receive is delivered to their legal representatives. Whenever possible, the practitioner in charge of a protected minor or adult patient will inform the person concerned in a manner appropriate to their maturity or judgment and will involve them in the decisions concerning them. Any intervention or general anaesthesia on a minor requires an authorisation signed by both parents or legal representatives.

Confidentiality

If you prefer that your presence remain undisclosed, please make this known as soon as you are admitted to the establishment.

State of health

France’s Loi du 4 mars 2002 has established regulations regarding the patient’s right to information by the doctor. This concerns investigations, treatments, preventative measures: their usefulness, urgency and consequences, as well as frequent or serious risks, other possible solutions, foreseeable consequences in case of refusal and new risks identified. Your desire to remain uninformed about diagnosis or prognosis will be respected except when third parties are at risk of transmission.

Access to your medical records

At any time, you may ask for information from your medical records. All that is needed is a written request to the clinic director with an attached photocopy of your identity card.
You can either consult your records on site, or receive a copy by post. In the latter case, you will be charged for the costs of copying and postage. In the event of death, your beneficiaries, if they have legitimate motives and void of any opposition expressed by you, may also have access to your records.

Freedom of information

Unless otherwise objected by you, some information about you collected during your consultation or hospitalisation may be saved digitally, in which case it would be reserved exclusively for the management of administrative and medical data, as well as the compilation of statistics (Article L710-6 of France’s Public Health Code). You are free to access and rectify any such information pertaining to you.

Users, know your rights...

View the Hospitalised Patient Charter (in French).

CLUD

A committee against pain (Comité de Lutte contre la Douleur)

"If you’ve got pain, let’s talk about it!"
"... everyone has the right to receive pain-relief care. In all circumstances, pain must be avoided, evaluated, cared for and treated…” Article L.1110-5 of France’s Public Health Code” Don’t keep your pain a secret. When you tell the doctors about it, they can help you relieve it better.
CLUD's mission is to help define a coherent pain-management policy and to promote and implement actions in this area. To request a visit by a nurse specialised in pain relief, simply ask whichever nurse is assigned to you.

CLIN

Official support structures dedicated to the implementation of a national policy to fight nosocomial infections.

A committee against nosocomial infections (Comité de Lutte des Infections Nosocomiales)

To ensure you the highest-quality care possible, the clinic pays significant attention to the hospital’s hygiene and the prevention of nosocomial infections. This activity is coordinated by the Comité de Lutte des Infections Nosocomiales (CLIN).

Its role

Our CLIN committee includes a team of doctors and nurses specialised in hospital hygiene.

They pay close attention to the hygiene of:

1. Medical and surgical facilities
2. Medical and surgical instruments, especially their sterilisation
3. Medical staff, through the hygiene of clothing and hands
4. Food, drinks and lavatory water

Prevention

Infection prevention is ensured by respecting healthcare protocols, which are shared throughout all departments, and by implementing the tools best adapted to each department. To develop proper corrective measures, thorough observations are conducted in our establishment via ongoing collection of infection cases across all hospitalisations.

How can you help?

You can help us maintain a good level of hygiene by adhering to the following measures:

1. Avoid contact with any family member with a contagious infection, even if it seems trivial (colds, flu). Also, avoid bringing children under the age of 10 to hospital, as they may be incubating a children’s viral disease.
2. Be careful to not drink warm tap water.
3. Follow the preoperative shower protocols offered to you by the caregiver (before any scheduled surgery or X-ray).
4. Always ask the care staff to adjust venous catheters, drains or probes for you, and avoid touching your operative scars.
5. Respect the rules of isolation to protect your family members, other inpatients and caregivers against the germs you are or may be carrying. This isolation imposes some constraints that will be explained to you by the care staff.

User relations

C.R.U.: A user-relations committee (Commission des Relations avec les Usagers)

Its mission

Composed of a conciliator doctor, medical managers and user representatives, the Commission ensures the respect for users’ rights and contributes to the reception of hospitalised persons and their relatives. It also makes it easier for users to approach grievances with school officials. If you wish to get in touch with the Commission, please write to the clinic director.

Its rights and obligations

The Commission has the right to access medical data relating to complaints and claims, subject to the prior written consent of the person concerned. In addition, the members of the Commission are subject to professional secrecy.

Blood safety

If your state of health requires it, and with your consent, you may be prescribed a blood transfusion. Transfusions are supervised by France’s Committee for Transfusion Safety and Hemovigilance (Comité de Sécurité Transfusionnelle et d’Hémovigilance) Learn more (website in French): https://dondesang.efs.sante.fr/ 

Organ donations

Organ donations are a gesture of fraternity and solidarity.

In order to facilitate the development of organ transplants, France’s loi n°94-654 du 29/07/1994 allows for samples to be taken, for therapeutic or scientific purposes, from any person who has not expressly opposed the procedure in his or her lifetime.
+33 (0)8 00 202 224
http://www.agence-biomedecine.fr/

Identity monitoring

Identity monitoring aims to anticipate any errors or risks that could result from patient misidentification. IDENTIFICATION = SAFETY

When you are admitted to hospital, you must provide us with your social security documents (health insurance, mutual cards, etc.) as well as valid identification (ID card, passport, residence card, etc.).

All data concerning your identity will remain private.

To avoid duplications, our initial challenge is to ensure that each patient is properly and reliably identified, from their arrival until they leave the establishment. It is therefore mandatory that you present your identity card, passport or residence permit upon your admission.
It is essential for this rule to be respected by you as well as the reception staff. At the regulatory level, the documents are authentic for requests for blood transfusions, biological analyses, etc.
Additionally, your ID card information is used to create an identification bracelet. As this bracelet is important for proper identity monitoring, it must match your documents perfectly, which helps to avoid dysfunction and inefficiencies. The bracelet must remain on you throughout your stay. Graphic guidelines are applied throughout our establishment.

Mistreatment prevention

Our establishments are internally equipped to respond to any act of physical and/or ethical malice or mistreatment carried out on you by your entourage (family, health professionals, etc.).

COMEDIMS

A body of commissions for medicinal products and devices called COMEDIMS (Commissions du médicament et des dispositifs médicaux) provides a consultation setting between prescribing doctors and health-centre pharmacists.
These COMEDIMS were made compulsory as part of France’s décret du 26 décembre 2000 pertaining to internal pharmacies, and through its loi du 17 janvier 2002 aimed at social modernisation. Their active role in promoting quality care is thus reinforced by their participation in keeping medicine and medical devices safe.