Paris (AFP)
Caregivers throwing in the towel, helpless families waiting for a call, a "newsletter" with the dreaded record: in one of the most affected nursing homes in Paris, belonging to the Rothschild foundation, the epidemic ravages behind closed doors .
Nearly 500 people from all social classes occupy the rooms of this establishment, one of the largest in the capital. In the Gila wing, one of the four buildings of this vast private institution, the telephone has been ringing for days.
"Care team with four mobile numbers, it does not respond. Medical secretary, it does not respond. Psychological cell, it does not respond", summarizes with AFP, Clarisse Marquez. Her mother, 85, entered the facility a few days before confinement on March 17.
Gray zone since the start of the epidemic, deaths in accommodation establishments for dependent elderly people (Ehpad) - more than 7,500 in France - were until last week still excluded from the count taking only into account the death in hospital.
According to the latest report on Monday, at least 2,417 people have died in nursing homes or other health centers since the start of the coronavirus epidemic.
Between two sentences said by her mother with difficulty on the phone, Clarisse Marquez understands that "something was put in her nose".
It will take her several days to successfully reach a caregiver: a Covid-19 test was performed on her mother; she is "sick for several days", lets go of the caregiver before shortening the conversation.
Since then, Clarisse Marquez claims to have received no other information, except that the test was positive. "A 90-year-old patient" is already cured, a doctor told him for comfort.
- "Shortage" -
Since March 12, after having already restricted visits and implemented barrier measures, the retirement home of the Rothschild foundation has confined itself to preventing the virus from affecting its occupants, who are particularly at risk.
From the portal on rue Picpus (12th arrondissement), only the nursing staff enter and exit. A few days ago, a company delivered coffins.
During one week, no new assessment in the establishment was communicated. The management, requested by AFP, did not want to answer the questions at first.
At the end of March, a team from the Regional Health Agency (ARS) visited the establishment to ensure that protective measures were implemented. "The ARS has regular contacts with the establishment," said the agency to AFP.
In a letter to families a few weeks earlier, the director of the establishment, Hélène Valentin, assured that "the personnel working on a resident carrying the virus are fully equipped with overcoats, masks, glasses, and protective gloves".
For cases or suspicions, "groupings are organized on certain floors to avoid the spread," she added.
However, according to concordant sources, the establishment faces a shortage of caregivers, themselves contaminated or who have exercised their right of withdrawal in the form of sick leaves.
Management informed the families that they were "recruiting" and even contacted them, asking them to refer health professionals they knew to them.
The management disputed this situation Monday evening, evoking certain employees "contaminated, or sick, or prevented by the fact of babysitters". "But they have always been replaced on the schedule by temporary workers or by overtime worked by their colleagues," said the director general of the Lucile Rozanes Mercier Foundation at AFP.
According to a nursing assistant member of the Ehpad network of the foundation, herself on sick leave, the staff in the network in Ile-de-France are lacking, care is limited to a minimum and instructions such as "cleansing in last to the patients "of the Covid to avoid spread, were given.
She denounces a lack of protective equipment at the start of the epidemic, corroborated by a word from management to the families thanking them for their "mask donations".
Since then, according to a union source within the establishment, arrivals of equipment allow carers to keep up "day to day".
According to the management of the Foundation, the question of the link with families in this dramatic moment, deemed insufficient by some, has been partly resolved by setting up meetings by "Skype" organized when possible between residents and their loved ones.
- "Unreality" -
An official of the Israelite cult of this establishment, which welcomes many Jewish residents, including several survivors of the Holocaust, has not heard from the establishment for three weeks.
"It's like I don't exist," he said on condition of anonymity. The synagogue was closed on March 3. At that time, visitors must then answer a health questionnaire upon entering, take their temperature and wash their hands.
For the first round of municipal elections, residents will be prohibited from "traveling to vote". A cell for recording proxies is set up in the Malka pavilion.
This is where Marguerite Derrida, 87, lived. The psychoanalyst, wife of the famous French philosopher Jacques Derrida, had joined the establishment a year ago, recommended to her two sons.
One of them, Jean, managed to see her one last time before the national ban on visits issued on March 11. "The ladies-in-waiting were there, the staff, as usual, seemed a little overwhelmed, but nothing more," he recalls.
"Is that when the virus circulated?" He asked.
A few days later, the first four cases of Covid-19 in the establishment were confirmed to families. They are housed on the same floor as Marguerite Derrida, where around forty rooms are aligned, with a view of a garden.
Quickly, a suspicion of contamination hovers over her. A doctor tells Jean "not to be optimistic". And on a Saturday morning, a short call announces the news: it's over. Her mother will be buried alongside her husband, only her two sons will be present.
Faced with questions about his mother's last hours, the nurse shortened: "I felt they had instructions," he said, still surprised by the "unreality" of the speed at which this is. product.
Friday, after a week marked by a rise in the epidemic in France, the establishment decided to send a new letter to families.
Latest assessment: 117 contaminated residents, one in four in three weeks, 34 dead. The previous week, there were 19 dead.
On receiving this letter, Clarisse Marquez resumed her vain call round. "I'm afraid we will just coldly learn that it's over," she said. According to the latest news, her mother has been placed on respiratory assistance.
© 2020 AFP