News requires, there was a lot of talk about abuse in nursing homes during the last plenary meeting of the Regional Conference on Health and Autonomy. The CRSA is this consultation body bringing together elected officials, user representatives, territorial health councils, unions and players from the medico-social world, ie around a hundred members. It produces opinions on the policy pursued by the decision-making body, the Regional Health Agency, by trying to raise awareness of the problems raised from the local field.

This Tuesday in Dijon, among other items on the agenda, the assembly had therefore chosen to “self-seize” the scandal raised on a national scale by the publication of the book “Les Fossoyeurs”, by Victor Castanet . This long-term investigation revealed a number of malfunctions in establishments welcoming the elderly, in particular those of the Orpéa group. Ill-treatment, savings on food, misuse of public funds, shortcomings…

In the presence of Pierre Pribile, the director of the ARS of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, the president of the CRSA, Emmanuel Ronot, thus evoked these facts, even if, he recalled, “all the establishments and services cannot be put on the same plane. The fact remains that “deviations are possible, and that sometimes the quality of services and the safety of people are not guaranteed. Beyond emotion, the search for well-treatment and the fight against mistreatment must be a constant battle”.

Protecting professionals who alert

To shed light on the debates, Alice Casagrande, the president of the National Commission for the fight against abuse and the promotion of well-treatment, intervened by videoconference. “Public policy in this area is still very reactive: we act after a scandal explodes,” she observed. “And for good reason: until now, these are concepts that have not been documented, on which there was no data, and even very poorly defined”. One of the first tasks of the Commission, created in 2018, was to define mistreatment and to develop a “shared vocabulary” by everyone, people treated and accompanied, families, professionals.

A prerequisite to better decelerate cases when they are favoured, or even prevent them. More generally, Alice Casagrande pleaded for “prevention and cross-cutting action research, which sweeps public policies 360°”.

In conclusion, a representative of the CGT, member of the CRSA, revealed that “professionals who can alert on cases of mistreatment in the establishments where they work, can be prevented from doing so for fear of being sanctioned by their management. We should be able to protect them”.