Operators in the review: virus the case of the nursing home

French private operator of nursing homes are in Europe a large. You make billions in sales, because they lead hospitals, thousands of homes and special. Korian, the number one in Europe, is also homes for the elderly in Germany the market leader among the private care. Some of the more than 1000 facilities of the competitors Orpea even in China; in Paris, the shareholders Orpea rate currently at 6.6 billion euros.

Christian Schubert

economic correspondent in Paris.

But the Coronavirus crisis has exposed the company to a severe test. More than 10,000 people have homes in the French care of the Coronavirus succumbed. Add to that those residents who died in the hospital. According to official estimates, about half of the approximately 30,000 French deaths in the elderly from old people's homes concerned.

"Due to our homes in China, we were warned very early"

A quarter of the nursing homes in France is in private hands, the Rest is distributed to non-profit and government homes. Particularly, the European market leader Korian is now coming under fire. In one of his nursing homes to the North of Cannes, a third of the inhabitants died almost. Members have filed complaints, left-wing unions and politicians protested. "The rate of return, which is simply in the foreground. Like the government, they have managed the crisis poorly. The Material was saved,“ says the representative of the trade Union CGT at Korian, Albert Papadacci.

But is it really so easy? For one, it is not known whether in the private nursing and more people's homes died than in the public houses, because there is no official statistics. The critical Union leaders Papadacci acknowledges that the state's homes are in General better, "because there is saved at all corners and Ends". The private providers are the only ones who communicate to the mortality figures. At Korian, it came to the end of may due to Corona to 716 deaths in 308 French houses, at Orpea 475 deaths, which occurred largely in 225 French nursing homes were.

Orpea has understood it, to take communicative largely out of the firing line. "Due to our homes in China, we were warned very early on," says the France boss Jean-Christophe Romersi, the F. A. Z. "We have closed early, our homes for visitors and massively tested." However, this can also prevent Orpea has, on average, each nursing home a similarly high death rate, with rivals Korian.

Not more than one per cent of the workforce

The statistics are to touch with the tips of fingers. Because the facilities can not be isolated from their environment considered. What can you do in a nursing home, if the nearby hospital denied the inclusion of older patients? It's because of the scarce intensive care beds at the peak of the Covid crisis in France again and again. All of the actors in the care and health sectors suffered the stands under similar miss: The hospital capacities, masks, virus tests and a strategy for the foreclosure of the infected were missing.