- Eighteen volunteer staff from a Mansle Ehpad in Charente chose at the end of March to confine themselves to the establishment to "avoid contact with the outside" and protect the 59 elderly people who live there.
- The decision was made for an initial period of fifteen days. Among the 18 employee volunteers were carers, maintenance workers but also cooks and administrative managers.
- After three weeks of "total containment", the Ehpad resumed its normal operation on Monday when no case of Covid-19 was detected among the 59 residents.
“We are not submariners, it had to stop. We're tired and we couldn't go on like this for months and months. After three weeks of total containment, the Bergeron-Grenier nursing home, located in Mansle (Charente), resumed, this Monday, its normal operation still in the midst of the Covid-19 epidemic. "It was a professional adventure, certainly, but above all human," summarizes this Tuesday, director Pascal Ramirez.
On March 24, caregivers, maintenance workers, cooks and administrative managers, half of the establishment's staff, chose to lock themselves up 24 hours a day with their seniors. "Obvious," according to Patricia Vandebrouck, the accounting secretary, "in order to avoid any external contamination and to preserve the 59 residents still spared from the virus. Among them, people from 70 to 90 years on average, but we also have two ladies of 103 years each.
The chapel was transformed into a dormitory to house the 18 volunteers, as was one of the entertainment rooms and a meeting room. “We settled there in small groups of three or four. For the moment everything is going well. It must be said that the team is united, the group is living well, ”said Patricia Vandebrouck, from the first week of confinement.
"There was a sincere commitment, it was not just to be kind"
Three weeks later, 20 minutes found a united team. “I admit that when I arrived in December, my first impressions were not good, we were far from the ideal Ehpad, says Pascal Ramirez. Today, I am proud of my team, I was more than pleasantly surprised. There was a sincere commitment, it was not just to be kind. "
From the start of the Covid-19 epidemic, executives had proposed the idea of total containment. Quickly swept away by the magnitude of the task. "Then Romain, the maintenance agent, came to tell me" either we confine ourselves, or I'm off. Do it and you will be surprised ”, remembers the director. From the outset, all of the staff showed themselves to be volunteers. But family imperatives oblige, some are called to stay at home. Others will help those who are confined from the outside by shopping, placed on the doorstep. As for deliveries of medicines, food or equipment, they will be carried out in accordance with strict sanitary procedures.
"Our residents have never looked better"
For their part, Public Health France or the Regional Health Agency (ARS) of Nouvelle-Aquitaine have expressed doubts about the effectiveness of this radical decision. "There is no total containment, said, this Friday, the representative of Public Health France during a press videoconference. Being confined to residents is not a bulwark at Covid-19. "No one has entered our house," said Pascal Ramirez on Tuesday. The three medical visits planned during these three weeks took place in the rooms facing the outside. "Balconies were dismantled and the doctors went through the windows," explains the director.
Despite the skepticism of some of his peers, the figures give Pascal Ramirez reason for the moment: no case of Covid-19 has been identified in this Ehpad, whose 59 residents have not been in contact with their families since half-March. "We know it works," continues the affable director, who has become the darling of the media. Our residents have never looked better. Even people with dementia (Alzheimer's, etc.) are calm, soothed. Because there was less unrest, less disruption in their daily lives. "
A note of hope in this troubled period
The volunteers were however tired, and as the staff did not want to "become more dangerous than the proposed remedy", the adventure had to stop. Not without sadness and a feeling of unfinished business, even failure. “We didn't have a 100% safe relay. The ARS cannot fabricate tests at the click of a finger. Tired, we could make mistakes so we chose to get out of our bubble, ”argues Pascal Ramirez. A bubble like a note of hope in this troubled period. A bubble that will have made “confined volunteers” the darlings of 20 Minutes or CNN, in search of sweetness and nice actions. “We managed to put Mansle on the Charente map, then on that of Poitou-Charentes, then on that of France and the world. We even chose which residents spoke to the media during our new TV activity, ”smiles Pascal Ramirez.
But since Monday evening, no more big tables, card or Mölkky games and karaoke. We must now join the ranks. This Tuesday, a dozen staff who stayed at their place took over from the surrounded colleagues. The sanitary rules become those recommended by the ARS, with residents in rooms, the installation of a decontamination airlock at the entrance of the nursing home and the wearing of a mandatory mask for each employee.
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"We will control the flow, respect the barrier gestures, as requested, because it is now our only weapon against the virus", explains Pascal Ramirez who dreads having to use this modular wall built during "the adventure". "It must allow us to sectorize places if it turns out that residents can be affected by the Covid-19," said the director, worried. Because now the only danger is us. We, who go out and do our shopping while in stores it is still nonsense. "
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