Scandal Orpéa: “Fallen in the afternoon, warned the next day”, the poignant story of the families

Since the dispute over the ill-treatment of its residents, the Orpéa Residential Facilities for the Elderly (Ehpad) Orpéa has been the subject of several criminal proceedings. More than 80 complaints were filed with the Nanterre (Hauts-de-Seine) Judicial Court for “endangering the life of others”, “negligent homicide” or even “failure to render assistance to a person at risk”, Release recalls this Thursday , July 28 .

The preliminary investigation was opened and transferred to the gendarmes of the Central Office for Combating Attacks on the Environment and Public Health. The auditions started a few days ago and on this occasion publication reported some testimonies from the log of families of residents of Ehpad Orpea.

“Dressed in the same clothes for a week”

A teacher whose father is one of the residents of the Ehpad Orpea in Joinville-le-Pont (Val-de-Marne) reports that between October and November 2016 her father “wore the same clothes for a week”.

This man was also reportedly given “very small” portions at meals. It would also have happened “that a nurse offered him two or three additional compotes. My father takes them and eats them,” explains his daughter. “The nurse’s aide was slapped on the knuckles because management accused her of overfeeding,” she then pointed out.

More serious incidents occurred in November 2017 when the same resident reportedly suffered from breathing difficulties. “My father is in bed. Everyone in the room is concerned and I call the nurse. I express to her my deep concern and the need, in my opinion, to call a doctor immediately. The coordinator is absent that day and that will be wait until Monday morning,” the teacher continues.

“I’m still being taken for a fool”

So she would have called the emergency room and the on-site doctor would have diagnosed pneumonia before giving the resident oxygen. A few days later, the teacher would have noticed that her father had an open forehead. But the explanations did not satisfy her. “He would have stepped over his protective barriers along his bed, according to carers. They still think I’m a fool because my dad is visually impaired with bilateral glaucoma and can’t climb an obstacle on his own,” she said.

Another testimony, also based on an account, fills the columns of deliverance with ink. A dentist tells about the care conditions of her mother during a fall in the summer of 2020. She was a resident of the Le Corbusier nursing home in Boulogne-Billancourt (Hauts-de-Seine) at the time of the events.

“She fell in the afternoon and I wasn’t notified until 12:30 the next day. I arrived fifteen minutes later to find that they had put my mother to bed after her fall and hadn’t called the doctor,” the dentist said. quoted by publication. She herself would have called paramedics so that her mother could be transported to the nearby hospital.