An investigation was opened this Thursday, April 28 by the Nanterre prosecutor’s office after the government reported on the private group Orpea, manager of Ehpad, suspected of institutional mistreatment and embezzlement of public funds.
This report was sent on March 28 to the prosecution after an administrative investigation carried out by the State which revealed “serious dysfunctions” in the management of accommodation establishments for dependent elderly people (Ehpad).
This judicial investigation, entrusted to the gendarmes of the Versailles Research Section, was joined to investigations, already underway since February, for “forgery and use of forgery and breach of labor legislation by abusively resorting to contracts to fixed term,” the prosecution said.
Nearly 70 complaints filed
The investigation also covers a good “part of the complaints” filed by the lawyer at the Paris bar Sarah Saldmann, at the beginning of April 2022, the rest of the complaints still being “under study”.
Sarah Saldmann had announced that she had filed around 70 complaints with the prosecution. For these files, which denounce facts throughout the country, the investigations were “entrusted to the general management of the national gendarmerie”, according to the prosecution.
On March 26, the government announced that it was taking legal action on the basis of the conclusions of this report and that it intended to require Orpea to reimburse public grants allegedly diverted from their purposes.
A controversy born in January
The Orpea group has been under fire from critics since the publication at the end of January of Victor Castanet’s investigative book, “Les Fossoyeurs”.
He describes a system, within the private group, where the care of hygiene, the medical care, even the meals of the residents are “rationed” to improve the profitability of the company. And this while stays are charged at full price.
According to the administrative investigation, the “management” of the establishments of the Orpea group, which are often over-occupied, “gives priority to financial performance” rather than to quality criteria.