How many are these elderly people mistreated by relatives or malnourished in specialized establishments? How many people with disabilities are victims of sexual violence or bullying in institutions? No one in France today is able to answer these questions.
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However, there are many indicators, many indicators. Last February, the law even clarified what abuse is. However, these cases are too rarely reported. And when they are, they trickle back to associations, the ARS, the police or the gendarmerie. But these different institutions do not list them in the same way: there is therefore no harmonized file.
Faced with this pure administrative complexity, the consequence is direct: impossible to know, to quantify, to detect or to avoid a new scandal, as the book did The Gravediggers, at the origin of the earthquake around the Orpea retirement homes. One question remains:how big is the problem? He is obviously underrated. When they are able to do so, the victims do not always dare to denounce the abuses, and the professional-witnesses often hesitate to denounce them out of loyalty to their employer or for fear of betraying the patients. The omerta reigns in the medico-social on these questions.
By harmonizing feedback to better identify the problem. According to information from franceinfo, Jean-Christophe Combe, the new Minister of Solidarity, has notably mandated the General Inspectorate of Social Affairs (IGAS) to set up coordinated files. For the first time, his ministry recruited a technical adviser at the end of August dedicated to coordinating issues of abuse. But this work will take months, although essential to deal with the problem. But there is already an apprehension in the ministry: that these harmonized figures are terrible.
And to substantiate this concern, we must take a closer look. According to our information, calls to 3977, the toll-free number for reporting mistreatment of elderly people or people with disabilities, exploded: +24% over one year. This now represents 8 to 9000 files per year, “A very small part of the problem“, according to its Pierre Czernichow, president of the Federation 3977.
According to the WHO? 95% of cases of mistreatment are not reported. Suffice to say that today we are far from knowing the reality of the problem.