Paris (AFP)
Between 100 and 150 nursing homes in Ile-de-France are already affected by the coronavirus epidemic, said on Wednesday the president of the French Hospital Federation (FHF), according to whom the exact extent of the phenomenon at national level is this stage unknown.
"We know that in Ile-de-France, out of the 700 Ehpad (accommodation establishments for dependent elderly people, note), there are roughly between 100 and 150 who could already be affected by Covid-19 ", declared on franceinfo Frédéric Valletoux.
But "we do not have aggregated figures" on the people affected by the coronavirus in nursing homes and "we do not know exactly what the real situation is," continued the president of the FHF, an organization comprising 1,000 public hospitals and 3,800 Public nursing homes.
Several dozen deaths have been reported in recent days in nursing homes, hit hard by the epidemic, despite a strict confinement of residents. At this stage, no overall assessment of the victims has been communicated by the authorities for these establishments.
"The two main places of death are the hospital and nursing homes," said Tuesday the Director General of Health, Jérôme Salomon, announcing the establishment of a "daily monitoring of mortality" in establishments for elderly "in the next few days".
For Frédéric Valletoux, "this is a crisis situation", especially "for families", deprived of visits to their elderly parents. "You have to give them the information, you have to reassure them by telling them that all measures have been taken," he said.
The president of the FHF also called to equip the teams "taking charge" of the residents as quickly and correctly as possible. "Today, there is an emergency, it is the protective measures for the personnel (...) Clearly, it is slow to arrive on the ground", he regretted.
© 2020 AFP