“In 15 days, it was a tumble”.
The children of Lucette, 91, have filed a complaint against the Korian group, which they accuse of having let their mother waste away in a convalescent home near Pau, who died shortly after leaving.
Michel and Geneviève assure us: their nonagenarian mother was in good physical condition for her age before her hospitalization.
Alert and independent, this little woman with a strong character quietly led her "grandma's life".
“She walked two afternoons a week to her Golden Age club in Jurançon, played the lottery, did her shopping, cooked and gardened,” recalls her daughter Geneviève.
Until his fall on the night of April 16, 2020 and his hospitalization for a fractured femoral neck.
This is the starting point of a waltz between health establishments: an initial one-day visit to the Ossau follow-up care clinic in Gan, belonging to the Korian group, before his rehospitalization for a haemorrhage and urinary tract infection following the operation.
She will then join for 15 days this convalescent center located in a wooded park, on the heights south of Pau.
In full confinement, they will not be able to see her or speak to her by telephone, “her hearing aids not being recharged”.
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She was then transferred to the emergency room of a clinic following “cardiac decompensation”.
“When I saw my mother again, I felt that something was wrong”, says Michel, who begs the establishment “above all not to send her back there”.
The one who had spoken perfectly until now, didn't say a word.
“She no longer walked, no longer ate, only drank through a straw.
His gaze was shifty.
She was unrecognizable, ”continues Geneviève.
They also evoke the arms covered with bruises and significant bedsores, especially on the calves.
"When I asked her: 'Mom, were you beaten?', she lowered her eyes", breathes her son, in a trembling voice.
Back home, Lucette will no longer regain her former energy.
“She was clinging to the walker but she was too weak.
Her condition was not recoverable, continues the eldest.
Her physiotherapist was devastated to see her changed in such a short time.
The following days, her condition deteriorated and she was admitted for pleuropneumopathy to the emergency room of the Pau hospital, where she died on June 29.
The family wanted to alert the Order of Physicians, but they were quickly discouraged by the idea of leading their fight "locally alone against a large group" like Korian.
The release of the book "Les Fossoyeurs" by Victor Castanet on the Orpéa scandal reopens the wounds.
Geneviève and Michel decide to approach Me Sarah Saldmann, who initiated an action against the Orpéa and Korian groups.
They filed a complaint "against X for endangering the lives of others and involuntary injuries".
An approach carried out neither "out of pity nor for financial reasons".
“On his deathbed, I said to him: 'Mom, I will clear your honor', continues the son.
They receive similar testimonies from relatives of patients hospitalized in the same clinic.
“It has to stop.
We don't let fragile, defenseless people who can't speak be abused like she was."
Reached by AFP, Korian, number 1 in the sector in Europe, indicated "to have been aware of a complaint" but "to ignore the content".
"This affected the establishment's teams," said a spokesperson for the private group.
“We have not been contacted by this family, of course we respect their approach”, she added, before inviting them to join them via the number of their “family relations” service.
In total, thirty complaints from families of residents targeting Korian group nursing homes have been filed with a dozen prosecutors in several regions, according to their advice.
