Jessica Vidal loves her job as a home helper, it’s a choice she doesn’t regret despite busy days that sometimes start at 7:30 a.m. and end at 8 p.m., with a lunch break. Up to 15 senior visits per day,“It’s true that it’s been a good day!” In the structure that employs him, located near Compiègne (Oise), around twenty positions are continuously vacant. As the French population ages and mistrust of nursing homes grows after the Orpea scandal, companies specializing in personal assistance can no longer meet demand.
Jessica Vidal summarizes a classic afternoon thus: “There, between 5:30 p.m. and 8 p.m., I have four people to see. I start with a change, an undressing or a toilet. Then I go to another person who also needs a toilet and a change. Then a gentleman for a meal and the last person is a change and a bed”. “You tuck her in, you tell her a story”, we ask him with humor. “Exactly, she replies seriously, even sometimes a little kiss, a good night and see you tomorrow.” And then home help corrects itself: “Finally no kiss because there is the Covid”.
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No kiss but almost, all this for a salary of 1,400 euros net per month. “It’s not me saying it but the people around me. ‘For what you do, you don’t earn enough’ but I chose it so I’m not complaining about it.” A reputedly difficult and poorly paid job, where you also work on weekends. Often young recruits give up. Christophe Houdé, general manager of the ADMR home help network in Oise, is struggling to recruit: “These are professions that are not known at all, which have a connotation that is not necessarily the right one, to do the job that no one wants to do. Whereas today there is a professionalization of the job which is important.”
To attract candidates for the profession, the ADMR has created a home help school, set up training courses, mutual insurance, a works council, and bought service cars. Question wages, the sector depends on a collective agreement. What more would you need? “The finances of the department, the state, answers Christophe Houdé. We need more public aid given wisely.”
More money, a lot of money even, is what all the reports submitted to the various governments in recent years recommend. Before their election, Nicolas Sarkozy, François Hollande and Emmanuel Macron all promised a major reform of the financing of old age and autonomy, to properly support the aging of the population. This reform has still not seen the light of day.