These are voices that are rarely heard. In an open letter published on Friday April 1, several directors of nursing homes and assistance services for the elderly in Deux-Sèvres warn of their financial difficulties, and the little consideration they feel they have received from the Department, on which these depend. public institutions to operate. According to this text, it was a consultation meeting, on March 29, between the three management federations of the department and the president Coralie Denoues which set fire to the powder. “Disappointment is a weak word to describe the state of mind of EHPAD directors” at the end of this meeting, write the thirty signatories.
“How can we cope?”
“My colleagues felt humiliated, and absolutely not listened to”, denounces Jean-Pierre Bacle, head of the Niortais nursing home of the Sacred Heart and unofficial spokesperson for the collective. He himself preferred to boycott the exchange. On the menu of stormy discussions, the exacerbated difficulties encountered by the managers of establishments: recruitment difficulties, insufficient number of staff, and above all explosion of expenses linked to inflation. “At my facility, we’ve already exceeded last year’s gas budget, and it’s only April,” worries Jean-Pierre Bacle. “The problem is the same for food, which is much more expensive. And we are not going to ration the people who live with us!” Faced with this surge in costs, the leaders of Ehpad are calling for an increase in funding. According to them, the Department is only willing to increase them by 0.04%. “How can we cope?” wonder the signatories.
“We are asking the department to clarify its position. Does it want, yes or no, to save the nursing homes in Deux-Sèvres? For the moment, we really do not feel that it is a priority”, abounds Jean-Pierre Bacle. According to him, many establishments in Deux-Sèvres are in great financial difficultyand see no solution. “In the absence of financial support, which we were hardly hoping for, we expected at least a real listening, a benevolent exchange, an understanding of our difficulties. Finally, bitterness would be better than disappointment”, tackle the signatories.
A statement that is “dishonesty”
For her part, the president of the Department denounces a “show of bad faith” who is “unacceptable”. “The objective of this first meeting was to exchange freely and frankly on all the subjects of concern, by giving the floor to the managers of the EHPADs, voluntarily without any filter on the part of the community. “exchange, sharing and confrontation of points of view are not part of the software of the signatories of this press release, unlike the vast majority of EHPAD managers present at this meeting”reacts Coralie Denoues in a press release also published on Friday April 1.
“I clearly indicated that this meeting would be followed by a next meeting, within two months, to come back point by point on the subjects raised”she adds. “The terms of this press release are therefore deliberately dishonest: during this meeting, I proposed, among other things, the establishment of a working group on the attractiveness of personal service professions, the opening of ‘a reflection on taking into account the additional costs linked to energy prices and the launch of a study on the development of renewable energies’.