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No deconfinement in sight for retirement homes…
Elderly people in retirement homes (EHPAD) in France were not released like the others on 11 May. Visits are also extremely restricted. Thus, in an email sent in late April to resident families, the management of a retirement home located in Aquitaine, informs about new visit arrangements:
- No more of 4 weekly visits to the establishment, reserved for residents in a “sliding” state.
- Social distancing measure, no physical contact and the installation of a plexiglass if the appointment is inside.
- Maximum 1 only family member in the room
- Maximum 30 minutes, to make room for other visitors
This protocol follows ministerial directives. To have the right to visit, you will also need to be called and the resident will request it. We will then arrive at a specific time at the hydroalcoholic gel station for disinfection and temperature measurement.. «4 visits could take place this week. At this rate, in September, les 106 will finally have the right to see their families, at least one time. As for a second meeting, it may be difficult to get again ... ", testifies the family delegate. She deplores that the Council of Social Life was not consulted. It is always impossible to pass the least good, like clothes or food. People in closed areas (Alzheimer's patients) are not entitled to visits. Is it because they are in another world and it is useless? Cruel and inhuman.
Private outings and social life
Why Seniors Without Symptoms Still Can't Recover and Go Out With Their Families, like other French people and like other seniors not placed in retirement homes ? These measures are of course intended to "protect" residents who live in groups, so that they don't contaminate each other, especially since they are judged as vulnerable people (age, co-morbidity, cognitive disorders…). But we act as if the 600.000 residents of the French nursing homes were all sick, to the point of depriving them all of going out and social life.
Have we properly measured the deleterious impact of confinement in terms of mortality beyond the expected benefit?
The newspaper West France sounded the alarm in an article that probably reflects the situation in many retirement homes. The title is evocative : "The confinement will last in the Ehpad : of residents threaten to throw themselves out the window ”. The article dates from 20 April in full containment. In this report from a retirement home in the Loire Valley: "The residents are alone in their rooms, no collective workshop, no animation. Some residents let themselves go, not to say let themselves die, this is called slip syndrome, others are victims of serious psychological disorders ".
A few rare voices are raised
In World Forum, former Minister Monique Pelletier was outraged in early April about the brutality of the confinement, otherwise without support : “The living conditions of these residents in the face of the virus are incomprehensible and, to be honest, inhuman. Each of them has been confined to their room for more than six weeks without being able to leave it, therefore without contact with other residents and without receiving any visit from his family. Caregivers, which we know they have very little time for each day, are unhappy not being able to accompany them. When the situation of the sick gets worse and, hélas, their death is foreseeable, their transfer to the hospital is not possible, and no family member is allowed to surround them in this sad time. The pain of the families subjected to this absence is immense.”
En Belgique, the situation is not better. May's beginning, the editor-in-chief of the journal New Health testified of her mother-in-law's death in solitude, and its classification in case covid-19 which it considers absolutely unjustified.
More recently, always in a world forum, doctor victor haddad, geriatrician and hospital practitioner, was indignant, the 19 May : “Dependent elderly people have been weakened by the ban on visits to their establishments, without, however, preventing thousands of deaths”. “The ban on visiting the Ehpad was a pointless and cruel measure”. Has been ? This confinement is still required!
Still no physical contact
Certainly the confinement will “soften”. But physical contact and outings are prohibited until further notice. Each day exacerbates the feeling of hopelessness in many of these vulnerable people, both psychologically and physically. Another resident girl told me that she will not go to see her mother: "Our communication goes through touch, without, I don't even prefer to go. It will be too frustrating for us. ”.
We know that the ancients, more than the others (but like children), need contacts, kisses and hugs to be comforted, supported. For the majority, it's the only meaning of their life. A video testifying to the distress of Jeanne, a person aged 96 years, shows the psychic difficulty of confinement.
The general public was able to stay connected and receive emails with advice and videos like "how to meditate at home and better endure isolation and anxiety ? ». All this time, the elders remained without animation, without pedicure, without hairdresser, routine medical appointment. En effet, many doctors have canceled long-scheduled appointments for these patients: here a dentist despite the loss of his crowns at a boarder (which makes meals difficult), there a cardiologist for the annual meeting around the pace-maker. Worse, if someone is unfortunate enough to have an outside medical appointment, she finds herself again ultra-confined for 12 days in his room of 15m2 (testimony received these days)…
Closed without guardrail
Are these measures truly legitimate insofar as the epidemic is regressing? Its curve looks like a usual seasonal epidemic. This is explained by the eminent Marseille virologist Didier Raoult in his recent videos. Recently, we even saw the presenter David Pujadas, on LCI, tell us that the Covid case fatality rate has been lowered : of 3,5% to 0,5% ! What changes everything and makes the legitimacy of confinement totally null and void for the entire population! While other people will gradually return to normal life, in the name of what does this public remain excluded from the free public space?
One thing is for sure, for two months now, retirement homes operate behind closed doors, without any outside view that can assess the treatment conditions of residents. "There is no communication. We don't know what is going on inside or the number of staff ", explains a relative of a resident.
Less important than the hospital?
While the hospital has been in the spotlight and the main concern of policy makers, Ehpad remain without material support, without human reinforcement, although they too pay a heavy price for the coronavirus, according to official figures.
In the journal LaLibre.be, a volunteer who came to lend a hand in a retirement dares to testify to the gravity of the situation: " I do not can't hide what i saw in this home. Lack of time, the caregivers spend only for the distribution of meals and care. The residents find themselves the rest of the day facing loneliness, the vacuum and death lurking. The consequences of health policies are simple : the elderly in nursing home die alone and caregivers continue to fight by accumulating trauma as the days go by pass. Let human beings die with so little humanity and do fall an entire team of caregivers due to mismanagement of equipment is simply revolting ".
Segregation sanitary by age?
Fear of the virus mainly justifies segregation by the age. This public has also been deprived of the right to be taken care of at the hospital, so as not to overload resuscitation services. The state has effect prompted hospitals to “trier” Covid19 patients over 75 years in intensive care. The kick mouth of French politician Nicolas Dupont-Aignant was called Fake News, but this fact is highly likely since it is reported by Duck Chained, a serious review. In parallel, the elderly people in Ephad were able to "benefit" from Rivotril, processing without marketing authorization (AMM), intended to relieve their agony. A practice that some have equated with euthanasia, mostly in the context where chloroquine did not have this facility, despite the good global results of this city medicine treatment.
How many deaths in retirement homes due to confinement, more severe and unsustainable than anywhere else ? Who will be responsible? “Do we want to hasten the death of our elders ?” Some families find it increasingly difficult to understand the sequestration of the elderly, even if others find the situation completely acceptable… for the good of their loved one.
More than ever, it is fundamental to guarantee respect for the human dignity of these people, today ostracized from society. Have we fallen into fear of the old ? “disease vector”, treated like a plague victim, has he become the scapegoat for our collective denial, that of death, of old age and our guilty dehumanization ?
Read also : https://pryskaducoeurjoly.com/actu/7327/ehpad-bras-de-fer-ars-gouvernement/
To watch, for further, a video with 7 scientists:
The deconfinement in question – More harm than good?
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Keywords: seniors, ARS, scapegoat, confinement, health dictatorship, Ehpad, retirement home, the elderly