Thierry d’Aboville, secretary general of the National Union ADMR (Aide à domicile en milieu rural), an associative network of personal services, said Tuesday January 11 on franceinfo, that there was “three to four times more work stoppages than usual” among home helpers due to the Covid-19 epidemic. In a sector where teleworking is impossible and which is “already under great strain in terms of human resources”, the “Covid surge” make the situation “extremely complicated”.
franceinfo: Have the last few days been complicated?
Thierry d’Aboville: Yes, extremely complicated. It was really a wave that we have to face with positive employees and employees in contact cases, but also employees who must stop to look after their children in the event of a class closure. I must admit that the easing measures announced last night [lundi] by the Prime Minister are in line with our demands.
Have you been able to quantify the number of work stoppages?
On a network like ours, it’s three to four times more work stoppages than usual. And we must also keep in perspective that we are a sector which is already under great strain in terms of human resources. The ADMR network means 10,000 employees that we could recruit, that we are unable to recruit. This Covid surge comes on top of extremely tense human resources issues.
Are there any missions that you can no longer complete?
In our services, we have to prioritize interventions: getting up, going to the toilet, eating, sleeping for dependent people. This is a lesson from the first Covid crisis, we have to continue our interventions with people who are alone. We stopped them in this first crisis at the beginning and today we keep them because the isolation is also extremely difficult for these people. Very often, the home help, the social worker or the caregiver is the only smile, it is the only face, the only time a person can speak. We have maintained these interventions because they seem vital to us.
What have you changed?
We have had to postpone, postpone interventions which were not essential, which were not vital. This is what we do and at the same time, the intervention employees, these home social workers, the nursing assistants, the nurses did not take their vacation at the end of the year. They wished to maintain their interventions. Others work overtime. We are constantly adapting and unfortunately, for almost two years now, we have been accustomed to constantly adapting our interventions.