The traumatic experience that she claims to have had during a medical examination by the gynaecologist and Macron's deputy minister, Chrysoula Zacharopoulou, is described by 17-year-old "Mathilde" - she speaks under a pseudonym - who suffers from endometriosis.
After the examination she felt "dirty, humiliated, lacking all confidence in the medical profession" and today wonders whether she should take legal action against the 46-year-old deputy minister, according to the French newspaper Liberation."
"I was 17 and she was 40. As soon as I found out I had endometriosis, she had a reputation as an expert. I thought I could trust her, my mistake," claims "Mathilde". She cannot forget that she left Chrysoula Zacharopoulou's clinic "wounded" five years ago.
The testimony of the minor
The minor patient learned that she had endometriosis at 16 when she already had symptoms such as, heavy blood loss, severe pain and fainting episodes. "I went to pick her up several times from high school because she was having seizures that she couldn't walk. As the exams to get her diploma were approaching, we wanted to find a treatment to relieve her, I was worried that she would have to miss the exams," her mother claims in the French newspaper.
Then "Mathilde" underwent an MRI where doctors informed her of her illness. "My gynecologist immediately advised me to consult a specialist," says the now 22-year-old French woman.
Her mother made an appointment with Professor Chrysoula Zacharopoulou at the Bégin military hospital in Saint-Mandé in March 2017. "I was proud because she was supposed to be a distinguished scientist, an expert on endometriosis. I could not imagine that she would have such a cold and contemptuous attitude towards a very young girl."
While mother and daughter were waiting in the waiting room, the young girl felt "unwell". "The atmosphere was frightening, patients were coming out of Zacharopoulou's clinic looking troubled, one woman seemed very stressed and was going back and forth to the toilet," says "Mathilde."
"Cold and contemptuous"
The doctor was "cold" when the girl entered her clinic. "She was nasty and contemptuous of her intern who was preparing the medical bed," according to her mother. The woman shows the MRI to the doctor who, according to her, asks her to leave the room to examine her daughter.
"I'm sitting there and she doesn't say anything. She wears a medical glove and asks me to open my legs by pressing my thighs, without giving me any explanation," says "Mathilde". The young woman describes that there was dead silence. "Then he gives me an anal examination without warning me. I didn't expect it at all." The doctor then grabbed me by the ankle and said "relax or else, I won't do it," according to the young woman, who was a virgin."
At that moment, according to the girl's claims, the phone in Zacharopoulou's office started ringing. The gynecologist interrupted the anal exam, picked up the phone. She then continues the examination with the phone to her ear. A few minutes later, according to the former patient, someone knocks on the door. The doctor lets a woman into the room and starts talking to her, without even asking the minor girl's permission.
"What I felt was 'disrespect' or even 'humiliation'," claims "Mathilde."
At the same time, "Doctor Chrysoula Zacharopoulou gave me a vaginal examination, again without warning, without explanation and without my consent. She gloved three of her fingers while there was total silence while someone was in the room," says "Mathilde". Tears began to well up in his eyes. I felt "so much pain" that I "sweated on my back".I closed my eyes and waited for it to pass," the young girl recounts.
"My daughter had tears in her eyes."
When her mother entered the room, she immediately realized that the examination had gone wrong. "My daughter had tears in her eyes when the doctor opened the door for me." According to her mother, the doctor immediately after the exam "questioned" the MRI diagnosis and regretted the "not very clear" images. "She told me that I shouldn't complain because I was young and that she had seen much more serious cases," claims "Mathilde."
According to the two women, the doctor informed them that the girl had a constipation problem, that he would prescribe laxatives and pilates to "relax" her. "While it later turned out that I had endometriosis with my condition getting worse," says the young French girl."
Leaving the doctor's office, the teenage girl fell crying into her mother's arms and told her about the test. After all she had been through, she could not consult a gynecologist for a year. What happened at the hospital was "gynaecological violence", "bordering on physical and psychological violence", as the girl's mother says. "I should have gone back and asked the gynecologist why a 17-year-old girl left her office crying that day," she adds."
Source: in.gr
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