Medical Design and Outsourcing

  • Home
  • Medical Device Business
    • Mergers & Acquisitions
    • Financial
    • Regulatory
  • Applications
    • Cardiovascular
    • Devices
    • Imaging
    • Implantables
    • Medical Equipment
    • Orthopedic
    • Surgical
  • Technologies
    • Contract Manufacturing
    • Components
    • Electronics
    • Extrusions
    • Materials
    • Motion Control
    • Prototyping
    • Pumps
    • Tubing
  • Med Tech Resources
    • DeviceTalks Tuesdays
    • Digital Editions
    • eBooks
    • Manufacturer Search
    • Medical Device Handbook
    • MedTech 100 Index
    • Podcasts
    • Print Subscription
    • The Big 100
    • Webinars / Digital Events
    • Whitepapers
    • Video
  • 2022 Leadership in MedTech
    • 2022 Leadership Voting!
    • 2021 Winners
    • 2020 Winners
  • Women in Medtech

Mutilated Patients Demand Justice

March 8, 2016 By Associated Press

A Dutchman dubbed the “horror dentist” by French media went on trial Tuesday, facing charges of intentional violence and fraud. Dentist Jacobus Van Nierop could be sentenced to 10 years in prison and fined 375,000 euros ($413,000) if convicted. More than 50 victims are also seeking damages.

Scores of people came forward with complaints ranging from multiple healthy teeth removed, pieces of tools left in teeth, abscesses, recurrent infections and misshapen mouths between 2009 and 2013. His trial in the central-eastern town of Nevers is expected to last until March 18, with a ruling expected later.

Jacobus Van Nierop, pictured in his dental office. (Courtesy of the Associated Press)

One patient, Sylviane Boulesteix, has said she was unexpectedly summoned to his dental office in central-eastern France in May 2012. Without warning, the dentist pulled eight of her teeth out and immediately fixed dentures on her raw gums. For three hours, the elderly woman says she sat gushing blood.

In the following days, she says Van Nierop refused to relieve her pain. A judicial expert later described a “cruel and perverse” man whose incompetence made Boulesteix lose several healthy teeth, go through a trauma and suffer irreversible damage to her mouth.

Van Nierop has said he remembers only one of the 75 patients who allegedly suffered “mutilations” or “permanent disabilities” at his hands between 2009 and 2013, according to court documents. He now has to face many of them in court. “I dread the moment where I’ll see him again because it won’t be any longer the 100 kilograms rugby man who was smiling at us with disregard”, Nicole Martin, president of a victim association, told The Associated Press on the eve of the trial.

Van Nierop, who used the assumed first name Mark with his patients, refused to answer questions during the investigation, saying only that the oral health of people in the region was “deplorable”. He claims he was suffering from a borderline personality disorder, complicated with a transgender issue and suicide attempts. Detained in a French prison since January 2015, he staged several hunger and thirst strikes, and once swallowed razor blades before he was to be questioned by the investigating judge. Questioned about the alleged mutilations suffered by his patients, Van Neirop said: “It does not affect me.”

“I’m totally blocked from the inside and I don’t want to explain it all,” he told the investigating judge, according to court documents. “You can lock me up for years (…), it will not change.”

The dentist was welcomed by local people when he opened his office in 2008 in Chateau-Chinon, a small town located in a remote part of the Burgundy region with a status of a “medical desertification area.” Investigators said Van Nierop provided false documents to be allowed to practice dentistry in France, gaining tax and economic benefits, and concealed that he was the subject of disciplinary proceedings in his own country.

He allegedly overcharged his patients, billed them for imaginary dental care or intentionally did bad work which required further appointments and payments, according to court documents. Van Nierop, who lived in a luxurious home outside the town, had debts of nearly 1 million euros, officials said. When the noose eventually tightened around him, the Dutchman fled to Canada before being extradited to the Netherlands and then deported to France.

Related Articles Read More >

Logos of Creo Medical and Intuitive
Creo Medical inks collaboration agreement with Intuitive
Lazurite ArthroFree wireless surgical camera system Minnetronix Medical
How Minnetronix Medical helped Lazurite with its wireless surgical camera
Medtronic Hugo robot-assisted surgery system
The road to a robot: Medtronic’s development process for its Hugo RAS system
A portrait of Stryker executive Siddarth Satish
How Stryker includes users for product design in the digital age

DeviceTalks Weekly.

May 27, 2022
Quick message - No DTW podcast, but plenty else to listen to over this weekend and next week.
See More >

MDO Digital Edition

Digital Edition

Subscribe to Medical Design & Outsourcing. Bookmark, share and interact with the leading medical design engineering magazine today.

MEDTECH 100 INDEX

Medtech 100 logo
Market Summary > Current Price
The MedTech 100 is a financial index calculated using the BIG100 companies covered in Medical Design and Outsourcing.
DeviceTalks

DeviceTalks is a conversation among medical technology leaders. It's events, podcasts, webinars and one-on-one exchanges of ideas & insights.

DeviceTalks

New MedTech Resource

Medical Tubing

Enewsletter Subscriptions

Enewsletter Subscriptions

MassDevice

Mass Device

The Medical Device Business Journal. MassDevice is the leading medical device news business journal telling the stories of the devices that save lives.

Visit Website
MDO ad
Medical Design and Outsourcing
  • MassDevice
  • DeviceTalks
  • MedTech 100 Index
  • Medical Tubing + Extrusion
  • Drug Delivery Business News
  • Drug Discovery & Development
  • Pharmaceutical Processing World
  • R&D World
  • About Us/Contact
  • Advertise With Us
  • Subscribe to Print Magazine
  • Subscribe to E-newsletter
  • Attend our Monthly Webinars
  • Listen to our Weekly Podcasts
  • Join our DeviceTalks Tuesdays Discussion

Copyright © 2022 WTWH Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved. Site Map | Privacy Policy | RSS

Search Medical Design & Outsourcing

  • Home
  • Medical Device Business
    • Mergers & Acquisitions
    • Financial
    • Regulatory
  • Applications
    • Cardiovascular
    • Devices
    • Imaging
    • Implantables
    • Medical Equipment
    • Orthopedic
    • Surgical
  • Technologies
    • Contract Manufacturing
    • Components
    • Electronics
    • Extrusions
    • Materials
    • Motion Control
    • Prototyping
    • Pumps
    • Tubing
  • Med Tech Resources
    • DeviceTalks Tuesdays
    • Digital Editions
    • eBooks
    • Manufacturer Search
    • Medical Device Handbook
    • MedTech 100 Index
    • Podcasts
    • Print Subscription
    • The Big 100
    • Webinars / Digital Events
    • Whitepapers
    • Video
  • 2022 Leadership in MedTech
    • 2022 Leadership Voting!
    • 2021 Winners
    • 2020 Winners
  • Women in Medtech