They are hit hard by the health crisis. Housing establishments for dependent elderly people (Ehpad) are the subject of great concern as the coronavirus pandemic continues to spread in France. Of the 10,328 deaths recorded since the start of the pandemic, 3,237 deaths occurred in French nursing homes.
If the Minister of Health Olivier Véran announced, Monday, April 6, the launch of a large screening operation in these nursing homes particularly exposed to the risk of excess mortality, the pressure on these establishments remains very strong.
Lack of masks, shortage of gowns, distress of residents cut off from their families to avoid any additional health risk ... The situation of Ehpad is critical. And given this unprecedented context, initiatives are being put in place to support staff and residents.
"We will create an economy of the over-blouse"
"There is the strong problem of the mask, but also that of the overcoat, which we tend to forget", explains Emmanuel Sallaberry, mayor of Talence (Gironde) contacted by France 24. At the request of the four Ehpad that identifies his commune, the councilor launched, Wednesday, April 8, an appeal aiming to mobilize an army of small hands to make overblouses for the personnel working within the Ehen talençais.
"The production capacity of disposable items is not sufficient to cover all needs," laments the mayor. "We realize that stocks are running out, suppliers are making drawers ... The idea is therefore to set up a system of washable blouses that can be made available to the four Ehpad Talence, which count some 500 residents. "
For this, Emmanuel Sallaberry shared on social networks the boss of manufacturing an over-blouse according to a model designed from national recommendations. "They must be easily portable and must be able to be put on every time someone enters a room and removed as soon as they leave it."
# COVID19 As you know, some #EHPAD in #Talence have an increased need for gowns to cope with this health crisis. We need you !
It is together, thanks to this collective solidarity, that we will be able to get through this crisis. Take care of yourself. pic.twitter.com/dxcy5RTG5D
A few hours after the publication of the model, many people had already expressed their enthusiasm. Faced with the shortage of raw materials such as thread and rubber bands, a shopkeeper recovered the products she had in her haberdashery to restock the volunteers. "We will thus create an economy of the overcoat", abounds the mayor who explains that kits containing threads and elastic will be made available to the dressmakers, who will then come to the town hall to deposit their production.
"We are on a concrete, crying, rapid need, which can be covered," he adds, adding that at this stage, the operation implemented is limited to the scale of the municipality. "We respond to a localized need and we need to move up a gear to maintain impeccable sanitary conditions in our nursing homes".
Diving clubs offer their oxygen
In the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region (Paca), solidarity is organized within diving clubs. Closed due to confinement, they responded to the call from Doctor Di Meglio, specialist in hyperbaric medicine (oxygen therapy) and president of the Paca regional committee of the French Federation for Study of Underwater Sports (FFESSM).
The objective: to offer oxygen by recovering the reserves of the diving clubs in order to provide a transient solution to the Covid patients of the Ehpad, pending their treatment by the hospital.
"This equipment can be used for four to twelve hours, depending on the capacity of the oxygen cylinder and how it is used," explained the doctor to France 3 Paca. In just a few days, 90 clubs in the region offered their oxygen therapy kits to meet the needs of nursing homes.
"The human is revealing the best in many things," reacts the mayor of Talence, Emmanuel Sallaberry. In addition to initiatives aimed at strengthening health security, the mayor observes a strengthening of the link between caregivers and residents who, confinement requires, can no longer receive visits. "Staff members have slept at the sites," he said. "We have reinforced the face-to-face side, the listening side and the educational side because there can be psychological distress", he concludes, referring to the need to put in place "an increased presence and vigilance".
Letters from strangers for psychological support
"It is terrible this situation, people have no more visitors, it is already hard to be in Ehpad, but if in addition the residents are cut off from any relationship with their family, it is unbearable". These words, pronounced by his father - a member of the Partage et Vie Foundation - were enough to give birth in the mind of Mathilde d'Alançon to the idea of a large-scale letter-writing correspondence, in order to break the isolation of people living in Ehpad.
It was between cousins, aged 13 to 24, that members of the Alançon-Duron family launched the 1 Letter 1 Smile initiative. With the slogan "Do not confine love", the principle of this project is to invite anyone to write a letter to an elderly person isolated in Ehpad, to help them keep in touch with the outside.
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💛🤩. As some people already know, we have a team responsible for proofreading each of your letters to verify that they are in the correct format. Every day, we come across little wonders and here is an example ⭐️. . . . # covid_19 # self-help # letter # 1 letter 1 mouse # coronavirus # solidarity # solidarity solidarity # covid 19 help # how to help # good action # love sent # seniors # ehpad # people
A post shared by @ 1lettre_1sourire on Apr 4, 2020 at 9:52 am PDT
"Our first partnerships were with the Fondation Partage et vie, but we were quickly contacted by other directors of establishments and psychologists", explains Mathilde d'Alançon, 21, contacted by France 24. "We have then set up partnership systems with several Ehpad and now have a tab on our site which allows you to directly register a new establishment ". Six hundred Ehpad have already joined the movement.
Anyone can participate, provided they have a computer and Internet access, in order to write a personal letter via the site. "You have to speak with your heart," smiles the co-founder of the site. Once written, "the letters are received on a database. We reread them to be sure that there is no indelicate word, then we send them to the Ehpad by email." A kitty system also allows the author of the letter to participate, if he wishes, in the printing costs.
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💛 Testimony of the Partage et Vie foundation “:“ Keep the link! Containment is difficult for everyone and residents and professionals who care for it need to know that they are supported. Four of our establishments have already received letters. The residents were delighted and are already working on writing responses. Thank you to the authors of the letters! ”
A post shared by @ 1lettre_1sourire on Mar 22, 2020 at 3:20 am PDT
The project seduces and the letters are always more numerous. A total of 43,600 letters have been sent since the start of containment. "Everyone, on their own scale, brings their little sun," says Mathilde d'Alançon. "It's very encouraging in a dark moment like this."
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