Frédérique Modolo is a disillusioned whistleblower.
Director of the nursing home La Rossignole in Onet-le-Château near Rodez (Aveyron) from mid-May until mid-September, she now feels "completely let down" by her former hierarchy, "dragged in the mud »On social networks, targeted by curious people who pass by her house sometimes honking their horns.
“Yes, I resigned from my post as director,” she explains by phone.
Not because I had things to blame myself for.
But good because I was fed up with feeling so little supported in the crisis I had to face ”.
On August 21, Frédérique Modolo dismissed for serious misconduct four of its employees, nursing assistants and life assistants of "protected units".
A special service in this accommodation facility for dependent elderly people, which accommodates twenty-eight people affected by Alzheimer's disease.
No physical violence against these particularly vulnerable people has been conclusively demonstrated.
On the other hand, the director discovered "degrading and humiliating" videos and photos of residents accompanied by comments that were sometimes gritty or mocking.
The whole was broadcast at least since November 2019 on the wire of a messaging grouping together the eleven employees of the service in question.
A group on Messenger
Three weeks earlier, on July 29, Frédérique Modolo had been alerted by a nursing assistant from another service.
She then tells him about the strange behavior of her colleagues, without providing material elements.
A testimony that the director takes very seriously.
His hierarchy is notified immediately.
The director has only been in post since May 18, called to the rescue to breathe new life into "humanity and serenity" in the village of La Rossignole (55 employees for 84 residents), an establishment constituted as an independent association that she already has directed from 2009 to 2013 and which has been struggling for several years.
On July 30, other witnesses were heard which reinforced the suspicions of mistreatment.
Beyond the humiliating photos of residents, some also evoke possible deprivation of food or the restraint of patients on an armchair using sheets.
At the end of the day, Frédérique Modolo summons to her office, in the presence of the president and the lawyer of the nursing home, one of the eleven members of the service concerned.
The latter minimizes the facts, but agrees to give access to the famous Messenger group.
Devastated by what she discovers, the director records everything, photos and texts, and sends the results of her research a few days later to the Rodez police station where she files a complaint.
Compromising clichés
The investigators then get their hands on very compromising elements.
According to our information, a very old lady is thus photographed wearing a diaper placed on her head.
At his side, a caregiver makes the V for victory.
In another photo, another resident appears in panties and bra in the middle of a common room, all accompanied by mocking comments.
Other remarks with a sexual connotation are made about a patient lying on her bed.
Men are not spared.
An elderly gentleman is pictured disguised as an Easter egg.
Another sticks a finger in his nose.
"At least we won't need to feed him," reacts one of the members of the group.
Residents' body odors are also the subject of derogatory comments.
They wanted "only to laugh with them"
In their defense, the four caregivers and caregivers targeted by the dismissal procedure, the most active on this Messenger thread, would have repeated "that they did not want to laugh at the expense of the residents, but only to laugh with them".
The other seven members of the service received a simple warning.
On the judicial side, a preliminary investigation, opened by the Rodez prosecutor's office on August 4, was entrusted to the city police station to shed light on all the acts of mistreatment possibly committed in these “protected units”.
In this context, two former employees were placed in police custody.
"They deny the facts or deny them any degrading character," said a judicial source.
Friday evening, the Rodez prosecutor's office opened a judicial investigation, in particular for "violence on a vulnerable person" and "non-assistance to person in danger".
"The investigations are not limited to the acts highlighted by the media discovered on the messaging", warns a source close to the investigation.
Fourteen complaints have already been filed by residents, their families and uninvolved staff.
Six alleged victims have been identified.
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Contacted, Sylviane Ramon-Fabre, the former director of La Rossignole from 2013 to January 2020, claims to have never been informed of possible abuses within the “protected units” service.
A service that definitely bears its name badly.
