- In Bouëre, the Ephad Le Voilier nursing staff sleep in a trailer truck parked on site.
- The fitted out vehicle was loaned free of charge by an entrepreneur working in the field of motor racing.
Nights and days on site, for a good cause. In Bouère, a small village in Mayenne, caregivers have chosen to stay sleeping near the Ehpad in a comfortable truck backed up to the establishment and initially set up for a car test, Le Mans Classic. “I find it good to be semi-confined to the residents. It limits the spread of the virus (…) and it also limits fatigue because you have to know that, now, we work 12-hour days, ”explains Isabelle Communeau, nursing assistant, in the bedroom of her colleague Sandrine Lalouze .
"So knowing that you can have a meal already ready here, a shower available and telling yourself that you don't have a road to do is great," said the 32-year-old woman, mother of two girls aged three and seven. "It is true that it is hard without the children, but we know that we do them good too", she assures.
"We protect ourselves, we protect residents and also our children"
Before being able to return to their homes, the caregivers work continuously two or three days in a row in the establishment, whose 60 residents (for 51 employees) have so far been immune to the virus. "That way we rest better and we start a little more attack the next morning," confirms Sandrine Lalouze. "We protect ourselves, the residents, and also our children," says this mother of two children, 12 and 16 years old.
Their place of confinement is rather pleasant: large bed flanked by designer night tables and surmounted by sconces, wooden cladding walls, door with a porthole opening onto a passageway lined with ropes leading to the other bedrooms. Each is named after a legendary car or brand since this truck-trailer is usually used to house participants during the Le Mans Classic car test, usually organized in early July but postponed this year to 2021.
Available to staff
From the passageway we see the balcony of the dining room of the Ehpad, used by the carers and deserted by the sick who eat in their room but still take a few steps in the interior garden in turn. Deprived of the visit of their loved ones, “the elderly like it when they are told that we are going to sleep in the truck. It reassures them, they are happy ”, assures Sandrine. "It's a second family, actually."
Boss of a company working in events specializing in motorsport, the owner of the trailers, Pascal Derouault, made them available to the staff free of charge. He still has three others, either in rooms or in dormitories, which he is ready to offer as accommodation.
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