TESTIMONIALS – In order not to destabilize their father or mother, French people choose to leave their parents in their usual environment. These children, who sometimes live hundreds of kilometers away, cope with more or less difficulty with the emotional and financial cost of these journeys.
Mary is convinced: if she had to move her 92-year-old father from his southwest mountains to the Paris region, where she lives, he would die within weeks. This sixty-year-old travels 800 kilometers every two weeks – or even three when she has a lot of work – to visit her parents, go shopping, check that everything is okay… If her father still lives independently at home, her mother has been living for a year and a half in a protected unit of an EHPAD, where the doors are closed by a secure code. The octogenarian is now very disoriented on a daily basis. Mary had noticed that her mother was gradually losing her memory, but it was her father, worried about her health, who called her one day, pushing her to make an inevitable decision.
Carers are those people, often family, who provide regular assistance to a dependent person due to age, illness, disability or loss of autonomy. Their load can be very heavy. And when hundreds of kilometers are added to it, it increases the difficulties. According to Simon de Gardelle, president of the Association of Carers, a quarter of non-cohabiting carers live more than 30 kilometers from their elderly parents. The distance is not the only factor: a Paris-Marseille – 800 kilometers and three hours by train – is much more accessible than a Nevers-Nancy…
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