ReportingIn this establishment in Aveyron, the Covid-19 caused the death of one person, undermined the health of all residents and continues to test the working conditions of caregivers.
A walker pushes his way to the entrance, tennis balls on his feet to avoid slipping. It is 10 am in Les Caselles, the nursing home in Bozouls, a small village in the heart of Aveyron. His back arched by his 92 years, Etienne Fabre holds it firmly and stands, decidedly, in front of the bay windows. Today, we come to pick him up for the day.
His wife, Odette, and her son, Alain, walk through the door a good hour later. “Sorry dad, but a six-hour drive from Toulon, and all those you have to visit when you come back to the village, that doesn’t help punctuality.” “ We present our health pass and we do not kiss. But, at least, visits are allowed. “If we want to get out, we need at least that”, concedes Alain. Mask on his nose, he has a smile on the edge of his eyes when he looks at his father. A modest veil falls over what everyone would like to forget. This damn coronavirus, with here the “r” rolled by the dialect, which separated them even further.
At Les Caselles, the entrance hall serves as a TV room, games, waiting and palaver. There is another common room, even bigger, right next door, but everyone prefers to meet here, in the village square in the village. Raymonde Segond opens the ball every morning. With the cane stuck under her arm, she moved in at 8:15 a.m. ” her ” place the blue seat next to the plant. At 89 ” something like that “, she spent her life at ” To place oneself “, as she says. Doing housework for some, agricultural work for others. So no way to stay cloistered in her room, she needs “See the world”. And the world, there are many. Gilles and his cleaning cart, Camille with the medicine cart, Véronique running between two toilets. The ballet of colorful blouses never ceases.
“We spend our time saying that we will come back”, sighs Bhamini Prayag. At 62, fifteen of whom worked as a nursing assistant at Caselles, she knows each resident by heart. Their pathologies, of course, but above all their lives. Gérard’s passion for philately, the war cross of the resistant Delsol, the love that Josiane and Pierre found here … “Nursing assistants are a lot of clichés. We are seen as the butt washers or we are not seen altogether. But if we are not there to look at them, touch them, give them love on a daily basis, who will? ” Especially since, for many, family visits have become scarce since the start of the pandemic. Not to mention the period when everything had to be closed.
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