Mutualization, expropriation or even recruitment of staff: at a time when the private group Orpea is accused of serious dysfunctions in its establishments, the candidates for the Elysée are competing for ideas to improve the situation in nursing homes.
After the release of the book “Les Fossoyeurs” by journalist Victor Castanet, President Emmanuel Macron, not yet an official candidate, affirmed Wednesday during the Council of Ministers that “these revelations were absolutely shocking, overwhelming and that they obviously called for we continued our investment for old age”. Here are the proposals of his probable rivals in the race for the Elysée:
Haro on speculation (Yannick Jadot)
On the left, all the candidates are rebelling against stock market “speculation” around private nursing homes. To put an end to it, the ecologist Yannick Jadot wants to put an end to “any new authorization for private for-profit nursing homes”, so that the “mistreatment suffered in many establishments cannot be a lever for speculation”. Like his rivals on the left, he also pleads for the recruitment of “accompanying staff” so that they are at least 8 for 10 residents.
“Put the means” (Anne Hidalgo)
The PS candidate Anne Hidalgo, who criticizes Emmanuel Macron for not having carried out the “great law on dependency which he had nevertheless promised”, intends to “put the means” in the sector of old age. It proposes to guarantee “a public service” whose first objective would be to keep the elderly at home through the recruitment and training of staff to take care of them, whose remuneration and status would be enhanced. The nursing homes would also benefit from an “increase in supervision”.
Read also: Richard Ferrand pleads for the care of the elderly to be a non-profit sector
Expropriation (Fabien Roussel)
This is what the communist candidate Fabien Roussel proposes for the Orpea group in order to “get our elders out of the clutches of finance”. His objective: to create a large ministry responsible for seniors, as well as 300,000 jobs over three years, with a cost that he himself estimates between 10 to 13 billion euros which would be financed by “social security contributions”, he said. he explained on Public Senate.
A public network (Jean-Luc Mélenchon)
LFI candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon does not advocate the nationalization of nursing homes. “No, that’s not the way to go about it”, he assured on his channel “Allô Mélenchon”. In his eyes, nursing homes must be entrusted “to non-profit structures which do not distribute profits”, such as associations, cooperatives or mutualists. In his program, he recommends the development of a “public network of retirement homes with harmonized and accessible prices”. He also defends the creation of 10,000 places in public Ehpad for five years”, with an increase “in material and human resources”.
A “radical change” (Valérie Pécresse)
On the right, the candidates agree on the need to strengthen controls. The candidate LR Valérie Pécresse pleads for “radically changing the model of Ehpad”, with in particular a “mandatory reference” applicable to the public and the private sector. According to her, it is essential that the daily living conditions are “strictly controlled”, from the quality of food and care to the size of the rooms, including “the time devoted individually to each resident by the caregivers”.
“Remedicalizing nursing homes” (Marine Le Pen)
For Marine Le Pen, it is first necessary to “remedicalize nursing homes”. The candidate for the National Rally at the Elysée regrets that there is no coordinating doctor in “many” of them. She also wants there to be a certain number of caregivers in relation to the number of residents in order to avoid abuse. “Perhaps we should think about a mutual system where profit would not be the priority and where the well-being of the elderly would be?” she suggested on CNews.
Removal of ARS (Eric Zemmour)
The far-right polemicist Eric Zemmour has found in the controversy over nursing homes an additional argument to attack the Regional Health Agencies (ARS), which he wants to abolish after their strongly criticized management of the health crisis. To avoid cases of abuse, “the first thing to do, it seems obvious to me, is the controls”, he explained on France 2. “It was the ARS who were in charge of the control, which proves that they are useless”.
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