In 30 years, Jean-Claude Marian, former director of a retirement home in Saujon in Charente-Maritime, has built an empire. Orpea is now the world leader in dependency care, present in 23 countries with 1,110 establishments. There is nothing like the Stock Exchange to free up the funds necessary for such rapid growth, which likes double-digit margin rates and just-in-time management. Investors cherished the Orpea share, with its insolent growth and to which analysts attributed a “risk of controversy…
In 30 years, Jean-Claude Marian, former director of a retirement home in Saujon in Charente-Maritime, has built an empire. Orpea is now the world leader in dependency care, present in 23 countries with 1,110 establishments. There is nothing like the Stock Exchange to free up the funds necessary for such rapid growth, which likes double-digit margin rates and just-in-time management. Investors cherished the Orpea share with its insolent growth and to which analysts attributed a “risk of controversy” of 2/5… On Monday, Orpea suspended its quotation after having fallen by 17%, then by 28% on Tuesday January 25 . It is not the effect of the crisis. But, a rare phenomenon, from an investigative book.
In 400 pages, the investigative journalist Victor Castanet draws up in “Les Fossoyeurs” a book which comes out this Wednesday at Fayard, a real indictment against the practices of the juggernaut of nursing homes.
Profitability at all costs
In this investigation of more than 3 years, the journalist first points to the malfunctions in the Neuilly-sur-Seine nursing home, presented as the most luxurious of the group. If the VIPs spending more than 10,000 euros per month enjoy comfortable conditions, the author draws up, with supporting testimonials, an apocalyptic picture of the floors where the less fortunate residents (4,000 euros per month) and the most dependent: rationing of meals, even crackers, lack of staff, residents left without care, sometimes in their excrement…
Common thread of the book, symbol of the obsession with optimization within the group, the rationing of diapers reserved for the incontinent. No more than three a day, relates a witness in Neuilly. Beyond specific malfunctions, the author denounces an organized system intended to make each bed profitable. Several former directors of establishments testify to their constraints: applying a logic of profitability at all costs, piloted in an ultra-vertical way from headquarters, where software determines the day-to-day expenses allowed according to the occupancy rate.
In Bordeaux, at La Chêneraie, the author retraces the icy diaper count operated in 2010: between 2.1 and 2.8 per day and per resident. In Montmorillon, in the south of Vienne, Orpea had succeeded in reducing the cost of diapers to 41 centimes per day per resident.
“From the parking lot of old people”
The data opened by the Departmental Council of Gironde and by the former director of the Chêneraie in Bordeaux who denounces brutal managerial practices at the top of the empire allow the author to suspect a substantial siphoning of public aid received by the group ( the “dependency” and “care” components of nursing homes are subsidized by the Departments and the ARS). In Bordeaux, the declared (and subsidized) number of nursing auxiliaries would have been higher than that actually hired. Ditto in Montmorillon where 10% (140,000 euros) of the aid paid by the ARS would not have been spent in 2014.
Mechanisms put in place with suppliers would also make it possible to channel part of the public funds allocated for the purchase of equipment to the group’s headquarters.
Compelled to maintain maximum occupancy rates, some directors have, according to testimonies, accepted psychiatrically unstable people. A practice that echoes, according to the author, tragedies that occurred on Isle d’Espagnac in Charente or Agen, where residents were attacked by other residents suffering from psychiatric disorders.
A catalog of practices on which the words attributed to the founder of the group are shattered: “We park old people. The person concerned may have disputed having made these comments, but neither he nor the management wished to respond to the author. No more than the ARS, in particular that of New-Aquitaine.
This Tuesday, Olivier Véran indicated that questions were going to be put to Orpea, not excluding the opening of an investigation.
Orpea reacts
After the publication of the good sheets of the book in “Le Monde”, Orpéa reacted by means of a press release, denouncing “controversial and aggressive elements” showing “a manifest desire to harm”. “We formally contest all of these accusations, which we consider to be false, outrageous and prejudicial. » « ORPEA, its managers and its employees have always placed, for thirty years, the well-being of residents, the support of teams and professional ethics at the heart of the criteria of their action and the development of the company. Every year, the group conducts a satisfaction survey of its residents and families, carried out by an independent external body, the latest results of which show an average recommendation rate of 95%. »