Florence Aubenas, senior reporter at World and vice-president of the Observatory of the great age created last Friday, said on franceinfo Sunday April 10 to want “open doors” nursing homes and “putting the spotlight on old age in France”after the Orpea scandal revealed in the book by journalist Victor Castanet.
franceinfo: The objective of this observatory is not to let this subject disappear?
Florence Aubenas: Exactly. As a journalist, I work a lot in France. One day or another, we come across the problem of old age, the way it is treated, and which is a real blind spot in our society. Victor Castanet’s book has brought him to the fore and I think he absolutely has to stay there. What is very striking is the shame of all those who are confronted with this problem: those who put their parents in institutions, the families who come, and those who work there.
How can we go about shedding light on the living conditions of our elders?
The principle of this observatory is to say that we are going to open the doors to this sector, old age. These are institutions but also elderly people at home. It’s about giving a spotlight in a place that used to be behind closed doors. The idea is to bring it to light. I think there are a lot of things to discover. Each of us knows that this is a sector which, if we can put it that way, is not going well: it involves public health issues, very important financial issues, issues quite simply of dignity. human. This is what we are trying to highlight today. We know something is wrong and we need to know what. We must be able to open the doors of these establishments and put the spotlight on old age in France.
Is this a subject that particularly affects you?
We have the impression that it does not affect us, that it is not for us, that it is not us who will go to an nursing home or who will have a nurse who will come to the house to help us. And yet, it is, we are all concerned. There is a kind of very mixed feeling about this sector. The other thing is of course the role of the journalist, which is to observe the society in which we live and go there as an investigator. This association wants to be a counter power. Of course the state, we hope, will do its job, but it’s even better when we get involved anyway.
You have worked a lot with the International Observatory of Prisons: would you say that nursing homes are also places of incarceration?
I wouldn’t call it incarceration or deprivation of liberty, but it is a place of confinement, whether voluntary or not. Sometimes, if someone goes to an nursing home, they go out less and less because there are fewer and fewer reasons to go out. Everything is here. We eat where we sleep. There is this kind of confinement which is not voluntary but which, little by little, creates itself. You have to break it too. There are many forms of confinement in an Ehpad which are much more subtle and twisted than there are in a place of deprivation of liberty where the door is locked. Those who are in nursing homes or locked up at home must have opportunities to go out. How many outings are organized in each EPAD or for the elderly by the public authorities? It is a more complex confinement.