The journalist from “Cash Investigation” (replay) Marie Maurice was hired by Korian to work in an Ehpad. When he arrives, no superior or referent is there to welcome him. In the locker room, she puts on her outfit, and takes a hidden camera. Thus equipped, she joins the day shift which has just taken over and introduces herself: “I am married, I start today. They told you I was just starting out and didn’t graduate?“That doesn’t seem to be a problem:”No, but don’t worry, it doesn’t matter“, replies his colleague.
On the schedule, the journalist, yet recruited with a carer’s contract, is assigned to the ASD team, that of qualified nursing assistants. She then discovers that she is not the only one to work as a caregiver without having a diploma. Conversation at the entrance to a room: “Ah well, he spent the night all alone, him, with a new one. There was no graduate. They shit“, said a young woman. That day, the team had six nursing assistants, two of whom were not qualified.
“When you are very, very late, there are even toilets that are done in the afternoon”
Each has to take care of 11 residents who have to be lifted, washed and dressed. All that work before lunch. In practice, the objective turns out to be impossible to achieve. “Marie will help you dress“, said one of her colleagues entering a resident’s room. She told the journalist: “There are some who have their toilet at noon. And there are even some, sometimes, when you are very, very late, for some bedridden people, there are even toilets that are done in the afternoon…“So the people in care don’t have a shower every day?”It’s almost impossible.“
The nursing assistants will chain the daily toilets all morning. “When we don’t have time, we don’t do the legs and the back“, says a member of the team. For most residents, it will be a quick soaping with a glove and a damp towel… but the clock is ticking.To really make a nickel toilet, you need at least twenty to twenty-five minutes. And you don’t have them. Basically, if you want to finish at noon, you have eight to ten minutes per person.“, explains a caregiver to the journalist…
>> Asked by Elise Lucet, the general manager of Korian France says: “I’m not saying everything is perfect. We are led to have people (…) who are not necessarily qualified, who will be put in the way of this diploma (…) and who are supervised by people who are qualified, experienced.“
Excerpt from “Ehpad: time for accounts?”, an investigation by Marie Maurice, broadcast Tuesday March 1, 2022 at 9:10 p.m. on France 2.
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