Retirement homes on the verge of suffocation, angry elected officials: in Brittany, mayors want to take the State to court to obtain more funding and save their public and associative nursing homes. The movement was born in the Côtes-d'Armor in May 2023, when several mayors of rural municipalities understood that their nursing homes were facing similar difficulties, says the mayor of Plouha, Xavier Compain.
At present, 330 municipalities are supporting this collective "Territories in Resistance for the Old Age". "There is a real Breton model, based on solidarity," Compain told AFP. 63% of nursing homes are public, 32% private non-profit and 5% commercial, according to the Regional Health Agency (ARS) of Brittany. Nationally, the proportion is 44% for the public, 31% private non-profit and 24% private. "This model is being called into question," the group said. The Saint-Joseph residence, an associative nursing home located in the heart of Plouha, is no exception. It recorded a deficit of around 150,000 euros in 2022 and expects to be still in the red in 2023. Like all retirement homes, it is financed by the ARS for the care of residents, by the department for dependency and by the residents for accommodation (food, heating, etc.).
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€135,000 electricity cost
The cost of electricity, excluding heating, has risen from €35,000 in 2020 to €135,000 in 2023, gives the example of the residence's director, Olivier Prigent. The daily cost of food has jumped by 15% in one year. "There are a lot of spending lines over which we no longer have control," he said. "If I had to pass on these increases, it would be on the rate for residents, except that we are in Plouha, the income is not huge." As an association, we are supposed to be accessible," with a balance of between 2000,2200 and <>,<> euros per month for residents, he continues, compared to double that in some private establishments.
The 78 residents are partly "retired farmers, with about 800 euros for men, 500 for women, craftsmen and traders, a few people from the merchant navy," the mayor said. If the nursing home were to close, "it would be really complicated," says Nelly Hervault, a member of the residence's social life council. Her 90-year-old mother's <>-year-old teacher's pension is enough to cover the cost of the nursing home, but "it's not very expensive compared to everything else that's being done elsewhere."
Deterioration of residents' health and dependency
The overall budget of the nursing home is defined within the framework of a multi-year contract of objectives and means (CPOM) valid for five years. It does not take into account inflation or the deterioration of residents' health and dependency. With an average age of 87.5 years of entry into a nursing home, "five years is huge," insists Marie-Thérèse Gicquel, president of the association that manages the Saint-Joseph residence. "The savings made in the past make it possible to hold on, but for how long?" worries the director of the nursing home.
To reduce costs, he changed his electricity supplier, reviewed all the contracts and is thinking about sharing the linen service with the neighbouring public nursing home. "You can't wait for everything to come from above," he says. However, the State must assume its responsibilities, demands the collective "Territories in Resistance for the Old Age".
Initially, 35 public nursing homes intend to give formal notice to the Ministry of Health, the ARS and the department to compensate for the economic damage they believe they have suffered. This would be a first in France, according to the law firm Coudray which represents them. If these three administrations do not respond or answer in the negative within two months, these nursing homes will refer the matter to the administrative judge. The fear of elected officials is that in the long term, nursing homes will be privatized and become too expensive for the inhabitants. "Private groups have already tried to contact us in order to take over," says Olivier Prigent.