Stéphanie Bataille is an actress and deputy director of the Antoine Theater. His father, comedian and actor Étienne Draber, died of Covid-19 on January 11, 2021.
Mr. President of the Republic,
Mr. Minister of Health,
I am speaking to you because I would like to raise awareness of what families experience in France on a daily basis due to inept, inhuman, odious and devastating regulations, which have no meaning.
I am not attacking anyone on the management of this extraordinary crisis.
We all live in unknown months on a planetary scale.
But I am relying on my personal story to tell you what is really happening on the ground.
The AP-HP public hospital, the ideal place to go to come out of it cured or at least in better shape, adds to the suffering of patients a deprivation of human contact which, for some of them, can be prove fatal.
My father returned to a Parisian public hospital, tested negative for cardiac surgery.
The latter went very well;
he was happy and in good shape, his release was scheduled for the following week.
On the other side of this door are the patients, but it is impossible to see them.
But like many of your fellow citizens, my father caught the coronavirus at the place of healing.
Indeed the nursing staff, whom I salute and thank, and of which you can be proud, are neither tested nor vaccinated.
There is a serious lack of human and material resources.
My father was placed in a Covid unit, where at the entrance to the building there is no hydro-alcoholic gel or temperature measurement.
This unit, on the 3rd floor, does not allow any visits from family or relatives.
We can just stay in front of a long corridor where at the back there is a door on which appears this sign:
“FORBIDDEN TO RETURN - COVID”
, with a digital code.
On the other side of this door are the patients, but it is impossible to see them.
We can only bring them meals or personal effects that we give to the nurses.
Why can healthcare staff go to the bedside, but not relatives?
They are dressed as we could be: charlotte, gown, mask, gloves, overshoes.
By observing all respectful gestures.
Every day we went to the hospital hoping the door would open.
Ten days locked in a room, what does this punishment mean?
Who can order such a measure?
We could not see my father again, while he called out loudly for us.
Every day we went to the hospital hoping the door would open.
We have only met categorical refusals.
A convict has the right to regulated visits.
It should be the same in hospitals, nursing homes, without further delay.
Let us rediscover our humanity.
Patients die of loneliness, depressed, overwhelmed by the suffering of not being in direct contact with their loved one.
Not to mention that this dictated, imposed separation is insurmountable for families.
Who could have imposed that we could not even attend the brewing?
How to grieve?
The deceased does not have visitation rights.
We cannot do face recognition.
We have a triple sentence: my father caught the virus in the hospital, we were forbidden to visit him, and we let go of thousands of abandoned people, with the impossibility of meditating in front of his remains.
It is unspeakable!
Under such conditions, reconstruction is impossible.
We cannot be infantilized like this, deprived of this fundamental freedom to accompany our loved ones until the end.
We must dare to do everything in our power to ensure that patients are supported throughout this ordeal.
This disarray endangers the mind, and leads to irreversible psychological damage to your fellow citizens.
How to move forward, to continue to live?
This virus must question us about the meaning of Life, protect and take care of the Other, and in no case wrap itself in a fatality.
Our researchers are proud to advance life expectancy.
People fight for dignity every day.
There is no age to leave.
“An old man who leaves is a burning library”.
So I ask you in the name of all, most certainly, that families can visit their loved ones whatever the cause of their hospitalization, and that the hospitals provide them with the necessary effects (over-gowns, gloves ...) for this. is done without risk.
We must dare to do everything in our power to ensure that patients are supported throughout this ordeal.
I still dare and I hope to say thank you already.