D“Serious failings”, including “mistreatment”, have been observed since 2015 in sixty establishments in Belgium welcoming French people with disabilities, the French Court of Auditors stressed in a report published on Tuesday, calling for improved controls.
Specialized establishments in Wallonia have been welcoming nationals from mainland France for decades and their numbers have continued to increase, with today some 8,200 French people (7,000 adults and 1,200 children), according to the Paris-based institution.
Wallonia welcomes in particular “complex cases” that cannot be resolved in France: discharges from psychiatric hospitals, young people who cannot find places in adult establishments when they come of age, people excluded from their centre for behavioural disorders. The population welcomed in Wallonia illustrates “the shortcomings of the French offer”, notes the Court.
These departures are covered by Social Security and French departments, at a cost estimated at 500 million euros per year.
“The creation of establishments in Belgium, facilitated by the certainty of (…) knowledge financed by France, has attracted new entrepreneurs sometimes very far removed from the medical-social field, alongside the historical operators”, considers the Court.
“Serious failings have been noted in more than 60 establishments” since 2015, notes the Court, which consulted 150 inspection reports: “physical or verbal mistreatment, deprivation of food as punishment, lack of care sometimes leading to death, spoiled foodstuffs, rationing of meals, poorly maintained or dilapidated buildings”, financial fraud.
These failures concern “about twenty” of the 200 or so structures that welcome French people each year, or 10% of them. “Incidents related to mistreatment or neglect have taken place (e.g.: slap from an educator on L., blows on J. by an educator, defenestration of J.) and are not reported to the authorities,” we read in a report cited by the Court.
In its response, the Assembly of French Departments notes with “concern” the “serious failings” identified by the Court and approves its “recommendations”.
Asked by AFP, the Association for French People with Disabilities in Belgium (Afresheb) believes that the report places “too much emphasis on the dysfunctions” rather than on the Belgian approach, which is “more effective and caring” than the French system.
“There have been shortcomings in Belgium, but standards have been raised and establishments are being closed by the authorities. Checks are more frequent in Belgium than in France,” says its president Isabelle Resplendino.
“The Belgian system focuses on education, whereas in France these complex cases are in psychiatric hospitals, on medication or under restraint,” says this Franco-Belgian whose child, who is severely autistic, now works as a groom in the Royal Stables.
