“I really feel like a waste,” says Guylène Madeline, the director of Gaps (psychological and social assistance group). The association, which supports people living with HIV, will permanently close its doors at the end of December 2024. In a press release today, the management writes:
“The ARS bears responsibility for the dismantling of an association which has worked for 38 years in the metropolitan area and for the loss of valuable collective expertise. »
The regional and departmental directorates of the Regional Health Agency “have decided to cut the entire subsidy granted to GAPS, representing 70% of its budget”. Which was fatal to the structure installed on Cours Aristide-Briant in Bordeaux.
“No project”
The crisis has been brewing since last year. In November 2023, ARS Nouvelle-Aquitaine brought together all the GAPS partners – CHU Pellegrin, Department of Gironde, DAC 33 (Coordination support systems) – for “a situation update”. To the Gaps team, it was announced “that the credits allocated within the framework of health prevention no longer exist and that in 2024 all missions would have to be carried out by common law partners”, reported the president of the association Isabelle Faure.
After several meetings, the decision to maintain funding for 2024 gave the team a glimmer of hope:
“It was a reprieve to allow us, in one year, to transfer the activity to the CHU,” explains Guylène Madeline to Rue89 Bordeaux. Collaboration with the CHU on a unilateral decision by the ARS did not allow the drafting of a project. For us, the CHU was not the right contact. They have health skills, but what is psychosocial, that is to say everything that our association offered, is not their core business. »
In 2023, 434 people benefited from Gaps support, which includes social workers, an integration officer, health mediators and psychologists. This “guarantees their access and maintenance of care as well as their social rights”.
“Serious concern” for associations
“The ARS decision to transfer GAPS users to the CHU does not take into account this reality on the ground and constitutes an insult to the work of GAPS professionals. It also endangers the lives of people living with HIV who depend on this specific support,” underlines the press release.
The Gaps team notes “institutional violence against users”, but also “employees, administrators and partners”. The employees met with a view to their integration into the CHU service declined, preferring economic dismissal.
“The CHU did not have the financial capacity to take on the entire team. To support people in the field, we had the equivalent of approximately 6 full-time equivalents. For their part, the CHU had funding from the ARS allowing them to take on 4. It was a truncated team,” adds Guylène Madeline.
Sharing “strong concern” and considering itself “an example of what could happen for other associations”, the Gaps calls for a rally in front of the ARS Nouvelle Aquitaine this Thursday, December 19, from 12 p.m., joined by Act Up Southwest.
