How “Cash Investigation” infiltrated private nursing homes

Héloïse Goy, with Alexis Patri 10:11 a.m., March 01, 2022

INTERVIEW

It is a particularly awaited program since the publication of the book-investigation

by Victor Castanet last January.

This book revealed the lucrative excesses of private nursing homes and in particular those of the Orpea group.

For its part, the

team was mainly interested in the market leader: the Korian group, which generates 1.3 billion euros in turnover per year.

For this investigation that she has been carrying out for a year and a half, the journalist Marie Maurice managed to get hired in an establishment of this group without having any nursing assistant diploma. 

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She tells the microphone of Europe 1 behind the scenes of this immersion, which she filmed with a hidden camera.

"What amazed me the most was finding myself hard at work right away. From the first hour, I had to take care of residents without anyone really bothering to know if I was able to do it,” she explains.

Profitability before well-being

"There is also the suffering of the staff, who keep saying that they don't have enough resources", recalls Marie Maurice.

"You have very little time to take care of the residents. In concrete terms, I haven't had any. In the morning, you wash the toilet, you try to finish before lunch. I have had to wash the toilet at 1:30 p.m., so from a gentleman who was still in his pajamas when everyone had been down for lunch since 1:30 a.m.

Thanks to confidential internal documents and exclusive testimonials (including former directors of Korian group nursing homes), the investigation shows us how this private company puts profitability before the well-being of its residents.

The program also points to the failure of the Regional Health Agencies (ARS) which do not sufficiently control the expenditure of private nursing homes to which they nevertheless pay millions of euros of public money each year.

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 According to Marie Maurice, this control must be strengthened urgently to avoid embezzlement of public funds and for things to evolve positively in the 7,000 nursing homes in France.

"We entrust a responsibility to these groups, which is to take care of people and to make fair use of public funds. And the safeguards are not in place", she warns at the microphone of Europe 1 .

Nine months to get an interview 

“For example, the accounts that each Ehpad must render at the end of the year to the ARS to justify the expenditure of public money are currently declarative”, she indicates.

"We do not attach pay slips or invoices. I do not understand why there is not more control. It is time that we look very seriously at the intrinsic functioning of this system, if only to put in place a satisfactory mode of control.

After nine months of discussions with the journalists of

, the general manager France of the Korian group has finally agreed to answer questions from Elise Lucet.

The investigation will also be followed by an on-set interview with Sophie Boissard, the general manager of Korian.

This interview, which was recorded live, will be followed by a round table with various specialists.  

The new

entitled 

is broadcast Tuesday evening on France 2, at 9:10 p.m.