Thirty-two people died between March and mid-April at the Pont-de-Veyle hospital center, in Ain, where management admitted the existence, gone unnoticed, of a “cluster” (patient) suffering from Covid-19. This center, located in the suburbs of Mâcon, includes care units and an accommodation facility for dependent elderly people.
Seventeen of the deaths occurred in the nursing home of the center and fifteen in its hospital services, it was said, confirming information from the regional daily Le Progrès.
While attributing "directly" only one of the deaths of the Ehpad to Covid-19, the management, strongly criticized by certain members of the personnel, explains that in the other cases, the disease caused by the coronavirus came " aggravate an already fragile state of health ”or“ complicate an extremely fragile and unstable state of health ” She admitted "the probable presence of a cluster during the second half of February, impossible to identify and of unknown origin".
"General disorganization"
Through the Regional Health Agency (ARS) of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, a "massive screening" on 300 staff and 77 residents of nursing homes dependent on the hospital center made it possible to determine that 30 people had been infected for the first (most asymptomatic) and 31 among those "in nursing homes and long-term care".
On Wednesday, management of the crisis was questioned by some caregivers, speaking in an "open letter" but unsigned. They underline there the "general disorganization" of the center "which failed to take the measure of the scale of the catastrophe of Covid-19".
Contacted by AFP, the management of the Pont-de-Veyle hospital did not wish to speak. According to the ARS on Wednesday, 1,102 people died of Covid-19 in hospitals in the region and 871 in Ehpad, including 41 in Ain.