Bureaucracies Protect Their Own

People on the outside can pound sand. The New York Times doesn't understand that. A French Pedophile Doctor Abused Hundreds in His Care. Why Wasn’t He Stopped?

Years before Joël Le Scouarnec was charged with abusing 299 former patients, he was convicted of downloading child sexual abuse imagery.

You would think that would be a red flag in hiring a pediatric surgeon. The French establishment didn't see it that way.

Of course the French courts didn't follow the law, and so the warning signs were covered up, or at least not sent to the people they should have been sent to.

But there was one clear warning sign: his 2005 conviction after an international F.B.I. investigation that snared thousands who had viewed child sexual abuse imagery. A French court at the time gave him a four-month suspended sentence, but demanded no psychological treatment, as it had for others. Nor did it restrict his medical practice. And the court failed to notify Dr. Le Scouarnec’s medical clinic, despite a law requiring it to do so.

And so even people who knew about the conviction hired him.

He was hired by a hospital director in the town of Jonzac, Michèle Cals, who told the court that the only person who informed her of the conviction was Mr. Le Scouarnec himself. But he arrived with a glowing recommendation from his last hospital, and the health ministry had approved his hiring.

“So what else did you expect me to do? Nothing?” said Ms. Cals, who retired a year after hiring him. “At the time, there were few applications and many vacancies, everyone was looking for surgeons. If he hadn’t been hired in Jonzac, he would have been hired anywhere else.”

There is more. Victim statements. Deflections from more bureaucrats. Another conviction that did NOT result in a suspended sentence.

The New York Times is confused because they believe that Europe is perfect. They pay no attention to the riots on the outskirts of Paris that are so regular, they don't count as news. They pay no attention to the increasing crime, and other problems. They love social programs and gun control, and are blind to everything else.

I can hardly wait until all of our health care is controlled by a giant, unfeeling bureaucracy.