“Me, in my life, I don’t wait to be controlled to do what I signed up for”, protested, Wednesday, February 9, Amélie Verdier before the Social Affairs Committee of the National Assembly. Out of the question for the new director general of the Ile-de-France regional health agency to hear, without being “shocked”, “some leaders of Orpea say that all this is linked to the fact that there are not enough controls”. Impossible, for the former director of the budget (2017-2021), to let the institution which she has led since August 2021 be pilloried on the grounds that the world’s leading group of private retirement homes practices “a system of cost reduction down to the bone”, with “destructive consequences on the care of tens of thousands of elderly people”, according to Victor Castanet, author of the book The Gravediggers (Fayard, 400 pages, 22.90 euros) on the “system” Orpea.
Hearing in turn, Wednesday, before the same commission, Mr. Castanet nevertheless explained why, according to him, “the regional health agencies have failed in their primary mission, namely to ensure the proper use of public money, and, above all, to protect our seniors”.
The same morning, in front of the deputies, Mme Verdier could not, in fact, hide the pitfalls of the ARS control mission. M. Castanet’s work revealed in particular the “malfunctions” in the Orpea Les Bords de Seine nursing home, in Neuilly-sur-Seine (Hauts-de-Seine). If this establishment was indeed the subject of an inspection by the ARS in 2018, only 24 nursing homes were checked that year out of the 707 in the region. A derisory number. Between 2018 and 2021, only 90 Ehpad in the region were visited by ARS inspectors. An average of 25 per year, or 3.5% of establishments. A very low score compared to other regions.
Decrease in the number of inspectors since 2014
“10% of nursing homes on average are subject to an inspection-control by the ARS, each year, excluding periods of health crisis”, affirms to World Brigitte Bourguignon’s office. A notoriously insufficient pace, according to the Minister Delegate for Autonomy, who, the day after the release of Mr. Castanet’s book, asked the ARS to check the 230 Orpea establishments in France as a priority…
Ile-de-France is not the only one to be below the average. The ARS of Occitanie only controls 8% of nursing homes on its territory, or 70 visits per year. “The way in which a regional health agency controls nursing homes is not limited to inspections, insisted M.me Verdier, Wednesday. There are also the documentary checks at the ARS office which make it possible to compare different sources and to realize whether there is a need to trigger an unannounced inspection or not. » In 2021, 290 complaints from residents and families were sent to the ARS. All these alerts do not report cases of abuse, specifies Mme Greenfinch, but they are “all educated”.
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