The stepfather of a former autistic patient hospitalized in psychiatry at the specialized hospital center Sainte-Marie believes that the inadequacy of the facility to the patient’s needs as well as negligence contributed to weakening her condition, leading to her death. He has initiated criminal proceedings against the center, which firmly denies the allegations.
A 61-year-old autistic woman died on April 3, 2026 in a specialized care home a few days after being transferred from the specialized hospital center (CHS) Sainte-Marie, located north of Nice. The patient’s transfer was allegedly carried out without communicating critical medical alerts concerning her that could have prevented her death. The stepfather of the deceased patient, Gérard Grandclément, president of the Isatis association working for the integration of people suffering from mental disorders, has filed a criminal complaint for involuntary manslaughter against the CHS. A similar complaint had been filed against the institution in 2018.
A facility inadequate to the patient’s needs
In a press release dated June 10, Gérard Grandclément denounces a “succession of failures involving CHS Sainte-Marie in Nice” which allegedly led to the death of his stepdaughter in early April 2026.
The patient had been hospitalized in psychiatry at CHS Sainte-Marie since her return to Nice in 2024. She had previously been living in a specialized facility in Belgium. With no available places in a suitable medico-social facility, the patient’s family had no choice but to accept her hospitalization at Sainte-Marie, while considering this new environment as “incompatible with the needs of an autistic person.”
The institution itself acknowledged this by late 2025: “She had no place in the hospital,” the chief psychiatrist reportedly stated in a note dated December 17, 2025, adding that the patient was particularly vulnerable there and that her condition could only “deteriorate.”
Broken nose and forced medication administration
From November 2025 onwards, a series of events allegedly contributed to the deterioration of the patient’s physical and mental health. According to her family, acts of violence such as assault by another patient, as well as forced administration of medication by nursing staff that required the patient’s resuscitation at CHU L’Archet, combined with a reduction in the frequency of authorized visits — once a month for relatives, “then completely forbidden to her stepfather” — allegedly contributed to weakening the patient’s condition.
At the end of March, her transfer to a specialized care home was organized. The recommendations for daily follow-up regarding recent disorders were not allegedly “properly transmitted” during her transfer, according to Gérard Grandclément. The patient reportedly died from complications a few days after arriving at the specialized care home.
“Isabelle died from this organized neglect. I am fighting so that there will be accountability, and so that no family experiences what we have lived through,” declares her stepfather.
Faced with these allegations, Gérard Grandclément has announced he has filed a criminal complaint with several charges: involuntary manslaughter, deliberate endangerment of another’s life, violence by a person entrusted with a care mission against a particularly vulnerable person, failure to assist a person in danger, and slanderous denunciation. Multiple reports have been filed, as well as a report to the Regional Health Agency PACA for “institutional abuse.”
The CHS firmly contests the allegations
At CHU L’Archet where the patient was resuscitated in mid-February 2026, the type of accident she suffered (an aspiration incident resulting from forced medication administration, editor’s note) was reportedly described as “frequent” among patients coming from psychiatry by medical staff.
For its part, the Sainte-Marie Hospital Association exercised its right of reply. The specialized hospital center denies the allegations and denounces “allegations” of slander in a press release dated June 12: “The Sainte-Marie hospital association firmly refutes the accusations leveled against it (…) The patient’s care was provided under the best possible conditions of reception and treatment (…) and was conducted in accordance with the applicable legal framework and usual procedures.”
Unable to accept “the dissemination of unfounded accusations calling into question the professionalism, commitment and ethics of its teams,” CHS Sainte-Marie also stated that it “will take all appropriate action, including on the legal level, to restore the facts and protect the reputation of its staff.”
Adequacy of resources to the CHS’s mission
The Sainte-Marie hospital center had warned about the lack of available resources to care for psychiatry patients in 2024. In a Radio France report, the chief physician Nicolas Paquin explained that there was a need for “more resources for psychiatry,” describing “dilapidated rooms, some shared, with sometimes two or three patients in about fifty square meters” within the specialized hospital center Sainte-Marie.
At the time, the center was also facing a shortage of nursing staff: it was short fifty nurses in September 2024. The prospect of working in psychiatry is ordinarily considered unattractive by healthcare workers. On the one hand from a financial perspective (salaries ranging from 1,900 to 2,200 euros net per month in 2024) and on the other, because “violence [from psychiatric patients] still frightens” people, psychiatrist Nicolas Paquin said at the time.
The small number of nursing staff made working conditions more difficult for those on site: “Days are complex because there is less staff,” explained the Sainte-Marie health manager Aldric Arfé to France Inter, mentioning ratios of “three caregivers (…) for twenty patients,” that same year.
In recent years, the institution has undertaken major renovation work to have new buildings and welcome more patients in more suitable facilities. The first phase of the work was delivered in early April 2026.
In light of these facts, the negligence alleged, if proven, appears to fit within a context of structural crisis in the institution’s human and material resources.
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