“Older characters are mistreatable because they are vulnerable”

The revelations about the operation of Orpea, in particular due to negligence on the elderly who use the Ehpad group, have caused a stir. “What scares us is ending our days in places that we have not chosen, which are called nursing homes. The elderly are mistreatable because they are vulnerable”explains Véronique Lefebvre des Noettes, psychiatrist and geriatrician, Friday, February 4. “In nursing homes, there are not enough staff, there is a kind of systemic mistreatment due to management which can be quite harmful for the elderly”she adds.

Does the Orpea scandal reveal the society in which we live? “We are very ambivalent towards the elderly. We don’t want to see this old man and we don’t want to look like him. And above all we don’t want to remember that we are going to die, that it is our finitude”, develops Véronique Lefebvre des Noettes. Should we rethink the Ehpad model? “You have to make small structures on a human scale, not exclude them from society, make places where it is good to grow old”concludes the geriatrician.