Medical Malpractice and Compensation in France, Part II: Compensation Based on National Solidarity

In France, distinctively from the compensation process by insurers of liable professionals, compensation of the victim will in certain cases such as medical hazards, hospital-acquired infections, blood-transfusion infections, result from a compensation scheme similar to that available for victims of terrorism and crimes. It is based on national solidarity and dispensed by the National Fund for Compensation of Medical Accidents (ONIAM). The growing importance of such a compensation scheme may appear to be a double-edged evolution. On one hand, it has improved the status of victims of medical harms; they are increasingly integrally compensated more quickly and under more flexible conditions thanks in particular to the legally established presumptions.

On the other hand, however, compensation by ONIAM, like any other national solidarity fund, may deprive victims of certain procedural safeguards provided by civil liability principles. On a more systemic level, the articulation between national solidarity and civil liability principles raises questions.