Breath tests plan for medical staff

MEDICAL workers should take a breath test before entering an operating theatre, an MP says.

The call follows the death last year in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques of a woman aged 28 during a caesarean – her anaesthetist later admitted to having been drinking.

MP for Oise, Picardy, Lucien Degauchy has tabled a proposed law which would make blowing into a breath test obligatory. He says such a law would have saved the woman’s life.

“I’ve been breath-tested as a driver dozens of times and found it perfectly normal,” he told France Info. “When it comes to saving lives we have to accept a certain discipline.”

However a union for anaesthetists, Bloc, called the proposal “ridiculous” and said people being drunk in the operating theatre is not a widespread problem and the woman’s death was an exceptional case.

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