Some “good leaves” in The world and it is a colossus that vacillates. The group of retirement homes and private clinics Orpea is in turmoil, Tuesday January 25, the day after the publication of the first extracts from the book-investigation The Gravediggers, signed by independent journalist Victor Castanet. This book, to be published on Wednesday by Fayard editions, reports on “malfunctions” generalized within the group’s French nursing homes (accommodation establishments for dependent elderly people), accused of having set up “a system that mistreats our elders”.
The company, which advertises itself as “a world leader” of the addiction sector, denied it in its entirety and deplored a “manifest intention to harm”. Despite this defence, its title collapsed on the Paris Stock Exchange and the government demanded an explanation.
1What does the book denounce?
In The Gravediggers, the result of three years of investigation and 250 interviews, Victor Castanet describes a system where hygiene care, medical care and residents’ meals are sometimes “rationed”, due to a “cost reduction policy” aimed at improving the group’s profitability. A former carer tells how much she had to “fight for protections” for the residents, who lived in a “piss smell”.
“We were rationed: it was three diapers a day maximum. (…) It doesn’t matter that the resident is sick, that he has gastro, that there is an epidemic.”
Saïda Boulahyane, life assistantin “The Gravediggers”
At the head of 65,500 employees in 23 countries, the Orpea group claims 372 establishments in France, the vast majority of which are retirement homes. Some are from “High Standards”, such as the residence Les Bords de Seine, in Neuilly-sur-Seine (Hauts-de-Seine). It was in this establishment that the writer and actress Françoise Dorin died in 2018, following a poorly treated bedsore. “The truth is that this establishment at more than 7,000 euros a month is not a health organization, but a for-profit company”, deplores a grandson of the novelist, companion of the actor Jean Piat.
Retirement homes, even private ones, benefit from significant funding from the State and departmental councils, recalls the author. “At least indirectly, some of this public money is not going to benefit the elderly”, he believes. The journalist calls on the State to review this system and the methods of controlling such behemoths.
The book also reveals links between Orpea and Xavier Bertrand, Nicolas Sarkozy’s Minister of Health from 2005 to 2007 and from 2010 to 2012. Victor Castanet reports an exchange with a former medical director of the group: “Do you understand now, Victor, why we felt all-powerful at Orpea? We had the Minister of Health at the time in our pocket.” Questioned, Xavier Bertrand affirms that he was not “no way to help anyone”.
2How does the Orpea group respond?
“We formally contest all of these accusations which we consider to be false, outrageous and prejudicial”, reacted the management of Orpea, Monday evening, in a press release. castigating “sensationalist excesses”, the group says it has seized its lawyers to give “all the consequences, including on the legal level”, to the publication of the book, in order “to reestablish the truth of the facts”.
According to the general manager of the group, Yves Le Masne, the testimonies for the prosecution come from a minority of former employees of the company, who would have nurtured a “bitterness” against her after leaving her. “We never asked for any rationing. There was never any question of sacrificing any care, it does not correspond to our directives or our values”, added the managing director for France, Jean-Christophe Romersi.
Management also had to respond to another article published on Monday by Mediapart. Accused of irregularities in the recruitment of its employees on fixed-term contracts, the company allegedly had short contracts signed on the grounds of replacing employees on permanent contracts, which, “in many cases, would not exist”. “It’s false, there have never been false employment contracts”, denied Yves Le Masne.
3How big has the case gotten?
After the publication of these accusations on Monday, the title Orpea on the Paris Stock Exchange fell by more than 16%, before its quotation was suspended for 24 hours, at the request of the group. Tuesday, early afternoon, the action tumbled again, nearly 17%, a fall of about 30% in two days. Other private managers of retirement homes have borne the brunt of this controversy: the Korian share has lost 15% since Monday and that of LNA health, nearly 5%.
At the National Assembly, the Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, announced on Tuesday that he had launched a procedure to obtain from Orpea “some answers” on these “serious allegations”. “In the light of these conclusions, I will see if it is necessary to initiate an investigation by the General Inspectorate on the whole group”, he promised, as he had hinted, earlier, on LCI.
“If there is reason to open an investigation, I will open it. I will not tremble.”
Olivier Véran, Minister of Healthon LCI
Socialist deputies demand that parliamentarians be able to have a right of visit “Unexpectedly” in Ehpad, on the model of what is practiced for places of deprivation of liberty. The leader of LR deputies, Damien Abad, wants the implementation of States General of dependency.
A former nursing executive from Orpea, Laurent Garcia, quoted in the book, calls for the creation of“an independent administrative authority that can control all private and public nursing homes”. He confirmed the lack of diaper stocks at the Bords de Seine, where he worked for eight months. “Caregivers had to do whatever they could. They were bath towels.” A not isolated situation, according to him: “Victor Castanet traveled all over France. He realized that it was the same everywhere.”