Sandrine Prioul, edited by Manon Fossat
While Covid-19 contaminations are not weakening in France, certain sectors are more impacted than others. This is particularly the case for home help, already under pressure due to staff shortages, and which can no longer ensure visits for all beneficiaries in the face of the absenteeism rate.
They are part of those jobs that cannot be done remotely: personal assistance for seniors and the sick. Faced with Covid contamination, the teams are under tension and work stoppages are raining down. A third of absentees are recorded on average in this sector already lacking in manpower. So it is impossible to visit all the beneficiaries, you have to choose. This is what is happening in a society, in Rennes, where Europe 1 went.
A telephone ringing non-stop in this personal assistance agency and two coordinators, day and night, their noses in chaotic schedules. “We don’t stop calling all day to cancel, replace or shift,” explains one of them. “We act in the most urgent priority such as toilet aids, getting up aids, meal aids… We cannot provide household help services if we do not have the staff available”, underlines the second.
“I no longer count the interventions”
For their colleague Eva, the afternoon off was out of the question. “So there, we go to an elderly lady where I will do a one and a half hour cleaning service, replacing a colleague who is on leave. Some have the Covid, others are contact cases”, notes she. “I no longer count the interventions I do, that’s how we replace.”
The retiree is almost privileged to see Eva this afternoon, because several performances had to be postponed. A double penalty for this sector already largely affected by staff shortages.