Relatives of elderly people who didn’t survive the Covid-19 epidemic in France’s care homes want management to be held accountable for what they say was inaction and a cover-up that saw their loved ones die, their lawyer told RT.
Relatives of elderly people who didn’t survive the Covid-19 epidemic in France’s care homes want management to be held accountable for what they say was inaction and a cover-up, their lawyer told RT. Several French retirees, some as old as 89 and 96, died in nursing homes in March and April, amidst the coronavirus epidemic that is still raging in France.
Now, their families have filed a lawsuit against the care facilities, accusing their staff of being appallingly slow to test and safeguard the elderly, lawyer Fabien Arakelian, who represents the plaintiffs, said on RT.
Their outrage centers on the “absence or insufficient application of safety rules as well as [Covid-19] tests absent or carried out too late,” he explained. On some occasions, they allege, the care facilities were
“concealing information,” meaning that families were kept in the dark about their loved ones’ health status.
The fatalities were not isolated incidents but “some kind of systemic failure,” it seems. While the lawsuit is against the management of the nursing homes affected as well as the regional health authorities, its scope may be far wider, the lawyer said.
Arakelian spoke shortly after French prosecutors opened inquiries into the nursing homes located in the department of Hauts-de-Seine, the western inner suburbs of Paris.
Investigators seek to find out if there is any sign of crimes such as manslaughter, failure to assist a person in danger, and endangering the lives of others.
The news comes on the heels of the Health Ministry reporting this Tuesday of 110 new fatalities at hospitals and care homes for the elderly, as France’s coronavirus death toll surged beyond 28,000.
This is not the first legal action related to how the novel coronavirus has been handled in France. In March, French doctors sought the prosecution of Prime Minister Edouard Philippe and ex-Minister of Solidarity and Health Agnes Buzyn for negligence and inability to act in the face of the Covid-19 crisis, which pushed the healthcare system to its limits.
“At some point the truth needs to be told, which is that these people have been lying to us from the start,” their lawyer, Fabrice di Vizio, told RT at the time.
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