The photos were taken a few days apart. However, it is difficult to recognize the one that appears there. On the first Yvonne Daize appears all smiles on her 96th birthday. In the others we see her disfigured on her hospital bed, a bruise over her eye, her forehead covered with a large bloody wound.
In the meantime, this 96-year-old old lady to whom her children “never managed to find a single fault”fell from a patient lift in the Orpea nursing home in Loos (North) where she had resided since 2016 after a stroke. To his daughters the establishment then spoke of a fall of 50 cm. The doctors suggest a height of two meters in view of the injuries presented by the old lady: head trauma and a triple fracture of the arm. It was ultimately a cerebral hemorrhage which took his life eleven days later.
Almost two years later, Martine remembers this tear that runs down her mother’s cheek, of her “impotence” facing her suffering, but also the immense anger that overwhelms her. “They would have called us saying ‘your mother fell asleep last night’, we would have been sad but that’s the logical outcome. But ‘your mother is going to die because we let her down’, This is not acceptable”, exclaims this former midwife, who compares the vulnerability of the elderly to that of infants because they suffer “without being able to speak”.
An anger that is all the stronger because the death of her mother is far from being a coincidence, believes Martine. For her, it is the lack of personnel which is at the origin of this fall. This March 3, 2020, the caregiver who takes care of his mother is temporary, not trained in handling the patient lift. This harness attached to rails on the ceiling which requires, according to protocol, the presence of two people to be handled without risk. However, he is alone when Yvonne falls on her head.
A lack of staff that Martine had noticed for several months, and for which her mother had already paid the price. “She had lost 15 kg in three months because we weren’t giving her food. We put her on a food supplement. It was easier than spending time feeding her.”notes Martine, very bitter.
“Now we need those responsible”insists Yvonne’s daughter. She will, with her sister, be present at the hearing this Wednesday to hear the two defendants: the caregiver and the director of the nursing home. But above all to hear the explanations of the Orpea company, also tried as a legal entity for involuntary homicide.
For Quentin Mycinski, lawyer for the Daize family, this affair is indeed the fault of a “system where we certainly make savings on the back of people’s care”. A situation all the more unacceptable as the death of Yvonne Daize comes a year after the Orpea scandal. “We have the impression that the lessons have not been learned”notes the lawyer.
Martine does not expect explanations, but rather excuses. After the death of her mother, the nursing home offered to pay the funeral costs, while ensuring that it had no responsibility for the death of Yvonne Daize. Contacted by franceinfo, the lawyer for the group and the two defendants did not wish to speak before the hearing.
