Addressed to the prosecution one month before the opening of an investigation, the report followed an administrative inquiry revealing “serious dysfunctions” in the management of the group’s nursing homes.
Le Monde with AFP
The Nanterre prosecution opened an investigation into the private group Orpea, EHPAD manager, suspected of institutional mistreatment and embezzlement of public funds, contacted by the France-Presse agency to the prosecution, Thursday, April 28. This follows the government’s report, after an administrative investigation, diligent by the State, revealed “serious dysfunctions” in the management of the group’s nursing homes, under the fire of criticism since the publication at the end of January, at Fayard, from the book-investigation of Victor Castanet, Les Fossoyeurs.
This judicial investigation, entrusted to the gendarmes of the Versailles research section, has been attached to investigations, already in progress since February, for “false and use of false and offense to labor legislation by abusively resorting to Fixed-term contracts, “said the prosecution.
The investigation also relates to a good “part of the complaints” filed by the lawyer, at the Paris bar, Sarah Saldmann, in early April 2022, the rest of the complaints being still “under study”. M e Saldmann had announced that he had filed around 70 complaints with the prosecution. For these files, which denounce facts throughout the country, the investigations have been “entrusted to the general management of the national gendarmerie”, according to the prosecution. “I am delighted with an opening of investigation but I expect to see what are the other files,” reacted M e saldmann.
On March 26, the government had announced that it seized justice on the basis of the conclusions of this report and intended to demand from Orpea the reimbursement of alleged public events diverted from their ends.
” Priority to financial performance “
Victor Castanet’s investigation book describes a system, within the private group, where hygiene care, medical care, even meals of residents are “rationed” to improve the profitability of the company . And this, while stays are billed at a high price, notes the author.
According to the administrative inquiry, the “piloting” of establishments of the Orpea group, often over-occupied, “gives priority to financial performance” rather than quality criteria. These reports from the General Inspectorate of Social Affairs (IGAS) and the General Inspectorate of Finance (IGF), finally made public by the Government, note in particular an insufficiency of the “grammages” of meals served to the elderly.
On the accounting level, “the compulsory financial documents transmitted to the guardianship by the EHPADs are insincing” and do not comply with the regulations, according to reports. Contacted, Orpea had not reacted immediately.