“The last time I saw my mother was March 6,” recalls Marie-Claire. The 86-year-old lady had lived in the Les Erables nursing home in Yutz for six years. On March 24, she had symptoms of Covid-19. After a short hospital stay, she died in her room four days later. The seven children do not live in the area, not all of them were able to attend the funeral. The room has been disinfected. Marie-Claire thought that she would have access to her mother’s room once the confinement was lifted. In any case, nothing suggested the opposite.
But in mid-April, she received a call from the retirement home. “I was told that I had to pick up her things, taken out of the room by the staff. The Ehpad has started testing residents and is reorganizing rooms to try to contain the virus. “Obviously I receive this argument but it is the process that is unacceptable. We were presented with a fait accompli without talking about it before, it is a lack of consideration. “
Marie-Claire is upset. It is impossible to meditate in the privacy of his mother’s room. On April 21, she went to Yutz with relatives. The Ehpad provided them with a minibus to transport the deceased resident’s belongings. “There were ten black trash bags and some furniture. “
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“There was a big miss”
Marie-Claire would like to salute the work of the teams who watched over her mother until the end. “I will be eternally grateful to the accompanying staff. They are great, ”she says with emotion. But she accuses management of a lack of information about the situation. And other families share his opinion. “I want to understand that everyone was overtaken but there was a big miss,” said the daughter of a 92-year-old resident, who died in hospital, ten days after leaving Les Erables.
The president of the SOS group, which owns the Ehpad, however calls for transparency. “We understand the pain of people but the safety of residents is paramount”, adds Jean-Michel Pecharman, director of Les Erables. In Yutz, as elsewhere, the violence of the epidemic struck without the Ehpad being necessarily prepared for it. “We have advanced as we go,” says the director.
At the beginning, the rooms of the deceased were just decontaminated. “Then we started testing residents, we created a healthy sector, organized room transfers. Some families have understood this, others have not. “We had to continue. “Things went very quickly, we couldn’t take the time we needed. The director uses the terms “resistance”, “war orders”. He explains that the decision to segment the retirement home was taken with the group’s general management. “You have to adapt every day,” he explains.
Beyond the procedures, the recommendations made or not by the health authorities, there is above all a pain, a difficult mourning. “I want to avoid other families experiencing the same thing,” concludes Marie-Claire.
> Read also: Transparency, but lots of figures
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Transparency but lots of figures
Asked about the coronavirus epidemic on April 24 , the president of the SOS group announced the death of fifteen residents at Les Érables in Yutz. On the same day, the director of the nursing home counted “eight deaths of residents tested positive for Covid-19”. It all depends on how the numbers are established. And that complicates the argument of transparency.
More specifically: “as of April 28, we deplore six deaths likely linked to the virus within this establishment, and nine hospital deaths,” writes the Grand Est regional health agency.
Families have a little trouble finding their way around and even report higher figures. “Everything I learn, especially on the death toll, comes from outside. This is not normal, “complains the daughter of a resident who died in early April.
10% of residents infected
Last week, the director of the Ehpad Yussois also said that the tests were automatic since April 16. No case of Covid was then detected in the quarantine of personnel. “10% of residents are contaminated and placed in sectored rooms, in the same area, to avoid contact,” says Jean-Michel Pecharman. The Ehpad has a total of 62 places.
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