ORPEA. In his investigative book “Les Fossoyeurs”, Victor Castanet, on the basis of several testimonies, points to several shortcomings in the nursing homes managed by the Orpéa group. Rationing of meals, questionable hygiene, negligence in care, mistreatment of residents that can cause death… The accusations accumulate, one heavier than the other.
[Mis à jour le 25 janvier 2022, à 17h08] This Wednesday, January 26 appears at Fayard The Gravediggers, investigation by independent journalist Victor Castanet on the lucrative excesses of nursing homes in the private sector. The 338 pages open up the debate on this social subject of the end of life of the oldest in specialized establishments, engaging the responsibility not of carers, nurses and other employees of medicalized retirement homes, but of managers. of certain groups. One, in particular, was particularly followed by the journalist: the world number one in the nursing home sector, Orpéa. Korian, another nursing home heavyweight, is also targeted by the book.
Several alarming testimonies are reported by Victor Castanet in his book, of which The world publish the correct sheets. Like that of Saïda Boulahyane, a carer attached to work in the very difficult so-called “protected” units, where the “walking” elderly people are grouped together – with severe cognitive disorders that alter their mood, their memory and their behavior, they are sometimes violent. She tells the journalist: “As soon as I arrived in this unit, as soon as the elevator opened, I understood that something was wrong. Already, there was this terrible smell of piss, from the came in. And I knew it was because [les résidents] were not changed regularly enough”. An intuition that was quickly confirmed, relays The world “It turned out to be the case. I stayed almost a year there, and I’m not telling you how much it was necessary to fight to obtain protections for our residents. We were rationed: it was three diapers a day maximum. And not one more. It doesn’t matter if the resident is sick, if he has gastro, if there is an epidemic.” Consequence: in addition to the three daily toilets, the patient, if he did on himself, remained in his excrement for several hours. What about his health? “Nobody wanted to know anything,” laments Saïda Boulahyane.
“A for-profit business”
Thomas Mitsinkidès, one of the grandsons of the successful novelist Françoise Dorin, had, in April 2018, published a Google notice on the end of life of his grandmother on the banks of the Seine: “If you want to get rid of people you love, at a lower cost, there is now a free place at 2and floor, on the left, coming out of the elevator… Madame Françoise Dorin, a renowned writer, entered this establishment less than three months ago. That’s the time it took them to make him lose 20 kilos, and the use of speech. That’s how long it took them to let a pressure sore escalate to the size of my fist. That’s the time it took to bring her to an irreversible state. Oh yes ! It’s pretty ! It’s cozy too. We will gladly boast about the spa and the comfort of the rooms. We will make you bows and big smiles. You will be made to believe that everything is under control… The truth is that this establishment at more than 7,000 euros a month is not a health organization, but a for-profit company […]”, he lambasted in this opinion. The author of the Gravediggers reports that François Dorin’s daughter told him that she thought about publicizing the affair for a while, before changing her mind: “Orpéa is an international group. They have an armada of lawyers, methods that I guess are very aggressive. I don’t I was no match for them”.
Françoise Dorin, after joining the establishment on October 24, 2017, died suddenly as a result of a skeptical shock caused by the degeneration of a bedsore, on January 12, 2018. An episode which could appear to reveal Orpéa’s shortcomings and negligence : the novelist, having already suffered from a slight decubitus on the malleolus, needed a specific mattress, called “anti-decubitus” to relieve the pressure on her – mattress which had not been installed on her arrival. It will take a month for a caregiver to spot redness on the resident’s skin and for such a mattress to be ordered. One night after installing the object, the Bords de Seine healthcare team realizes that it is defective and that Françoise Dorin has spent the night “on scrap metal”. According to the story in the book, this negligence will be followed by another, even more serious one: Mrs. Dorin’s bedsore wound is deteriorating, but the patient and her family will not be notified until several weeks later. of the condition of the eschar. The book adds, in the version of the facts presented by the family, that during an information meeting, the nursing manager minimizes the danger that François Dorin faces. And neither the coordinating doctor of the establishment, nor the family doctor, are informed: the nursing staff therefore continues the care, but without the supervision of a doctor. In December, the patient is transferred to the Beaujon hospital (Clichy, Hauts-de-Seine), where a VAC dressing, which is intended to suck impurities from a wound, must be put on her. His daughter, attending the appointment, will discover with horror “a gaping hole, at the level of the sacrum [là où était située son escarre]bigger than [son] fist”: she contacts the coordinating doctor, who apologizes and claims to have been contacted only a month after the appearance of the bedsore. Françoise Dorin dies two weeks later. The novelist’s daughter does not hesitate , in The Gravediggersto use the term “concealment”.
Other testimonies accumulate in the book: rationed meals, stressed staff, lost clothes and objects never found or reimbursed, absence of a night nurse in the residence Les Bords de Seine (Neuilly, Hauts-de-Seine) of the group, deplorable hygiene care, difficulties in administering medication and managing laundry, questionable quality of meals… Thus, Nora Sahara, a former nurse also cited in The Gravediggers, reports a logic of “spending less and earning more” in all the nursing homes in which she has worked during her career: “We have patients who stay in bed all day because we don’t have enough staff to bring them down in the dining room. There are patients who do not eat breakfast, for lack of personnel to bring them lunch. We have patients who are not hydrated and to whom we give jelly because we do not have hydration pouch. There are also dressings that we don’t do in the protocols because we don’t have “. Another alleged abuse described in the book, which echoes that suffered by Françoise Dorin: the failing care is obviously done without the families being aware: “You will not see any caregiver say to a family: ‘ Your mother fell because we did not have enough caregivers. We will never have that but it is the reality”, reports the former nurse turned journalist investigating the failures of the French healthcare system, which ensures that she will “never put one of (s) parents in a retirement home”.
A closeness with Xavier Bertrand?
A testimony, reported in the daily The world, perhaps partly sheds light on the fact that such behavior is tolerated, that of Patrick Métais, former medical director of Clinéa, the “clinical” branch of the Orpéa group. Contacted by Victor Castanet, he will indicate “we had the Minister of Health at the time in our pocket”, referring to Xavier Bertrand, Minister of Health twice (in 2005‑2007, then in 2010‑2012). As a reminder, between 2002 and 2010 the market for nursing home and clinic authorizations “literally exploded”, notes the author. According to Mr. Métais, “when there were really no other solutions left, then [Jean-Claude] Marian appealed to Bertrand”, who, still according to him, financed Orpéa and gave authorizations for the creation of Ehpad to the group – at the time, these authorizations did not require the financing of Health Insurance. A speech that rejects Xavier Bertrand, ex-candidate for the Les Républicains presidential nomination and president of the Regional Council of Hauts-de-France: it was not, for him, “a question of helping anyone, but to ensure that the projects presented succeed in strict compliance with procedures and in close collaboration with elected officials and local authorities, particularly departmental ones for the question of financing”. However, Vincent Castanet still reports, in The Gravediggers, that Orpéa’s business contributor in the north of France, Jean-François Rémy, would have confided to him: “I knew that they were very, very good with Xavier Bertrand, he certifies. When you take over the number of nursing homes and clinics they have obtained in the Aisne department, in the 02 [le groupe avait obtenu, au début des années 1990, sept Ehpad sur place, alors qu’il ne possédait alors qu’une dizaine d’établissement dans toute la France]where Bertrand made his political career… Everyone knew it and everyone said it.”
Olivier Véran’s response
The response of the current Ministry of Health and Solidarity to the controversy provoked by the publication of the Gravediggers did not wait: this Tuesday, January 25, Olivier Véran was firm at the microphone of LCI, declaring to wait “to have factual elements, and if there is reason to open an investigation, I will open it. I will not tremble”. In detail, the Minister means by “factual elements” evidence “coming from independent evaluation and control authorities”. In addition to these elements, he expects “what the group in question will answer us”. Mr. Véran assured to take “very seriously” the work of Victor Castanet.
Orpea demented
In one communicated published this week, the Orpéa group denied at all costs the elements put forward by Victor Castanet. Deploring attacks “unfortunately not new” but “extremely violent in a context where our teams have been even more mobilized for two years by the health crisis”, the group declares that it cannot “let such sensationalist and misleading excesses tarnish the image of ‘Orpéa and the sector’. And to affirm: “Orpéa, its managers and its collaborators have always placed, for thirty years, the well-being of the residents, the support of the teams and the professional ethics at the heart of the criteria of their action and the development of the Every year, the Group conducts a satisfaction survey of its residents and families, carried out by an independent external body, the latest results of which show an average recommendation rate of 95%. sector which is subject to strict regulations and regular checks by the public authorities”.
And to hammer: “He would obviously not have been able to ensure his development in France and internationally if he did not scrupulously respect his obligations”. The group concludes by announcing that it has “already seized its lawyers to take all the necessary steps, including on the legal level, in order to restore the truth of the facts and defend its honor as well as that of its collaborators”.
What is Orpéa?
Orpéa is a group founded in 1989 by Jean-Claude Mariam managing a chain of retirement homes and care clinics. It is a heavyweight in the industry, with 65,000 employees in 1,100 establishments across the planet. 220 Ehpad Orpéa are counted in France alone. In the residence of the group “Les Bords de Seine”, extensively investigated in The Gravediggersit is necessary, for example, to count 6,500 euros per month for an entry-level room?