“I would like to hear from you during an interview at my ministry on Tuesday February 1 at 9:15 a.m.,” she said in a letter sent Thursday to Jean-Christophe Romersi.
The Minister Delegate for the Autonomy of the Elderly, Brigitte Bourguignon, summoned the Director General of Orpea, Jean-Christophe Romersi, on February 1 to “to respond” to “serious charges“concerning the practices of the group in its Ehpad, denounced in a book which caused a shock wave.
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“I would like to hear from you during an interview at my ministry on Tuesday, February 1 at 9:15 a.m.“, at the request of the Minister of Health Olivier Véran, indicated Brigitte Bourguignon in a letter with a severe tone, addressed Thursday to Jean-Christophe Romersi. This interview “will be the opportunity to hear the explanations of the Orpéa group on several points which will be the subject of in-depth investigations by the State services“, she says in this letter.
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Clarifications expected on the supervision rate
The Minister wishes to have details on “the allocation to establishments of consumables such as sanitary protection or on issues related to the nutrition of residents», «the group’s managerial practices concerning personnel, the rate of supervision», «the procedures for reporting and following up on acts of mistreatment reported by relatives of residents” as well as “group financial practices“. An investigation by the General Inspectorate of Social Affairs (Igas) “on all or part of the establishments of your groupcan be initiated following this interview, specifies Brigitte Bourguignon.
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In the investigative bookThe Gravediggers“, the independent journalist Victor Castanet describes a system where the care of hygiene, the medical care, even the meals of the residents are “rationedto improve Orpea’s profitability. And this while stays are charged at full price. Orpea disputes the accusations, which it describes as “false, offensive and harmful“. “The government cannot tolerate such facts if they are provenwrites Brigitte Bourguignon in her letter.
The publication of the book has plunged the title Orpea, listed on the Paris Stock Exchange, and aroused many indignant reactions from union and political leaders.
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