A fake retirement home was discovered by the authorities last October in Dordives, Loiret, our colleagues from TF1info and Franceinfo reported on Monday, December 27.
The police, alerted after a report to the Regional Health Agency (ARS) of Centre-Val de Loire, found several elderly people there, some of whom were hypothermic and undernourished.
The gendarmes also seized cords in the residents' rooms, possibly to tie them up.
The establishment, which would be a "
shared apartment
" for seniors, had already been the subject of a report in 2018, made by the mayor of the town, Jean Berthaud.
A check had followed, and a prefectural decree dated 2019 had demanded the closure of the place, because of the health of the residents, who were "
in a state of mental and / or bodily dependence
", according to Franceinfo.
Read alsoScams: Ehpad pinned by the repression of fraud
Despite this court decision, the establishment was still open in 2022, as the city councilor noted when he discovered an accommodation offer on the Airbnb accommodation booking platform.
A new report is then made before the authorities take over the premises.
"Death of an elderly person"
Contacted by
Le Figaro
, the mayor has not yet responded to our requests.
With TF1, however, he mentioned the “
death of an elderly person
”, and confided that the Ehpad had “
no Urssaf number, and that a certain number of files were missing.
It blew us away
."
According to a social worker in the area, well aware of the situation and found by our colleagues, the residents of the Ehpad were “
locked up in the evening
” by the owner of the establishment.
Read alsoEhpad, crèches: the project to “measure” abuse is launched
The latter defended herself from these accusations and published an online petition to oppose the closure of her establishment.
She explains "
renting rooms to the elderly (...) with all the care they need but also and above all with visits from their relatives for whom it is much more convivial to come and see them at my house rather than in an Ehpad
".
The Montargis public prosecutor's office has opened an investigation for concealed work, abuse of weakness, illegal exercise of the professions of nurse or doctor, and forgery and use of forgery, in particular.
The investigations were entrusted to the Montargis research brigade.
