A report revealed by “Le Parisien” underlines how nursing homes were forgotten in crisis management at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. Government spokesman Olivier Véran considers this type of report “necessary”.
The government assumes, or rather does not “deny”. Questioned at the end of the Council of Ministers on the report concerning the government’s management of the health crisis revealed by The Parisian this Wednesday, government spokesman and former Minister of Health Olivier Véran said he “requested” this document in the first place.
“It’s a report I asked for so I’m not going to deny it. I asked for it, and for good reason,” he says.
“When I arrived Minister of Health at the start of an unprecedented health crisis, I effectively faced an organization that was not sufficiently prepared to deal with crises of this magnitude”, adds the door- word.
“Insufficient” data
The report of the General Inspectorate of Social Affairs (Igas), submitted to the government in November 2020 and entitled “Feedback from the management of the response to the Covid-19 epidemic by the Ministry of Solidarity and Health” , does not say anything else, according to The Parisian.
He points to a rise in “particularly incomplete data at the start of the Covid-19 epidemic” due to different “counting methods” and “sources”.
According to the newspaper, the report also shows how much the nursing homes were forgotten at the start of the crisis. For example, they were not included in the sending of an organizational note from the General Directorate of Health in January 2020, which presented the operation of the health crisis center, responsible in particular monitoring and coordinating crisis management.
Ehpads have also had to deal with a complex decision-making circuit leading to delays, on tests in retirement homes for example, where the national deposit was given “on April 6, either after the peak in the Grand-Est or in Île-de-France”, notes Igas.
For Olivier Véran, this type of report is “quite necessary”: “it’s completely normal, and fortunately I was going to say that we are asking for this type of evaluation in order to be able to adapt our response system to deal with to possible future crises,” he said on Wednesday.
