Laurent Frémont is the founder of the Collectif Tenir ta main (www.indretamain.fr). He advocates for the establishment of a right to visits by relatives in health and medico-social establishments.
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Among the many ethical abuses caused by the management of the pandemic, the restrictions and bans on patient visits appear to be unprecedented civilizational setbacks. Never, in recent or ancient history, had relatives been prohibited from accompanying our patients and our elders, a fortiori at the approach of death; never had hospitalized patients and the elderly been condemned to forced solitude; never had we so despised the farewell to the face and the funeral rites which are nevertheless the essence of our civilization.
The more than ten thousand testimonials received by the Holding your hand collective since March 2021 show lasting trauma, both for patients (experiences of abandonment, slip syndromes) and for loved ones (feelings of guilt, traumatic bereavement) and society as a whole (refusal of treatment leading to loss of opportunity, loss of credibility of medical personnel).
The abusive restrictions of [facility managers] will have thrived on the legal vagueness left by the executive and health authorities.
Laurent Fremont
Despite insistent requests from patient and caregiver associations, no regulatory text from the Minister of Solidarity and Health has come to frame the discretionary police power of facility managers.
The abusive restrictions of these will have thrived on the legal vagueness left by the executive and the health authorities.
This passivity is astounding in the light of the ethical scandals which still unfold today behind the closed doors of the services.
Not content with its inaction for a year and a half, the government has just further complicated access to hospitals and nursing homes, by imposing the health pass on non-emergency patients and visitors.
Whether one is in favor of or opposed to the sanitary pass, such a decision is revolting in several respects.
On the method first.
It was on the sly, at night at the latest, that the minister requested a second deliberation from the National Assembly, which had nevertheless rejected the extension of the health pass to hospitals and nursing homes, in favor of welcome amendments from the opposition.
It is therefore without debate, with a discussion time inversely proportional to the seriousness of the issues, that the executive will have imposed this measure.
And those who dare to voice a different opinion are immediately accused of "conspiracy" or "disinformation".
This logic only widens even further the gulf which continues to divide the French population, in a worrying climate of mutual confusion and aggressiveness.
We can only fear seeing a dissuasive effect on the most vulnerable groups, leading to risks of non-recourse to care which will be detrimental to society as a whole.
Laurent Fremont
On the merits then, the executive organizes a radical discrimination in access to care, a sorting among the patients which seriously penalizes those who cannot or do not want to submit to the health pass, starting with the most precarious.
We can only fear seeing a dissuasive effect on the most vulnerable groups, leading to risks of non-recourse to care which will be detrimental to society as a whole.
The government also distorts the mission of health institutions, which are assigned the role of vigilantes, even wardens, responsible for monitoring the regularity of the administrative situation of patients and their visitors.
However, caregivers know (or should know) that the link is part of care: depriving loved ones of access to the sick constitutes a form of violence which seriously contravenes their vocation.
The hospital must remain open to everyone, and this principle is not negotiable.
The priority is to provide it with resources, to strengthen its workforce and to increase the number of beds available, not to restrict access to them.
The analogy made by Olivier Véran as well as by Damien Abad between “hostos” and “restaurants” is astounding: how can we imagine comparing such incomparable situations?
Finally, and above all, the extension of the health pass to the hospital organizes solitude for patients and the elderly, by exercising an unbearable form of blackmail for families faced with an insolvent dilemma: or to comply with a health pass they disapprove of, or leave their loved one in forced isolation.
Hard hit by the restrictions that have been imposed for a year and a half, the elderly living in nursing homes risk being the first collateral victims of these new measures.
Coercion tramples on elementary ethics;
respect for procedures prevails in the face of humanity;
political authority violates the most fundamental natural rights.
Laurent Fremont
Let us imagine concretely the effects of the health pass in hospitals and nursing homes: will the relatives of a dying person, alerted in the emergency, have to submit to a test, thus losing precious minutes, far from the bedside of the one who dies in loneliness?
Will the parents of a child hospitalized for a long period have to be tested every 48 hours in order to be able to surround him / her?
The entourage of a person in nursing home will he be forced to leave his loved one in solitude for lack of health pass?
Definitely, Créon won against Antigone: coercion tramples on elementary ethics;
respect for procedures prevails in the face of humanity;
political authority violates the most fundamental natural rights.
But it's never too late to do it right. The Senate must honor its role of monitoring ethics and public freedoms by reversing this unjust measure. And the presidential majority will honor itself, during the second reading in the Assembly, by making amends and by reconnecting with the most elementary humanity.