ReportageIn the Aure and Louron valleys, as in the rest of the country, the home help sector is struggling to recruit. The job is difficult, poorly paid, and yet essential for dependent elderly people.
Through the indentations of the Pyrenees chain, the first rays divert shadows cast on the pastures and the slate-topped farms. Blue chasuble flocked with the acronym of Help at home in rural areas (ADMR), Fabrice Gaillard, carer, does not have the leisure to admire the play of lights on the valleys of Aure and Louron, on the borders from the country.
His time trial, or rather against the time clock – a clock with GPS – started half an hour earlier when he left his home, more than 20 kilometers away. First quick stop at the office of his employer, the ADMR of Arreau and its valleys, to review the aid plan of a beneficiary. Then he heads towards the village of Vielle-Aure (Hautes-Pyrénées).
“Hello Marie-Therese! » In her medical bed, the snow-haired old lady smiles, happy to find her life assistant. Partner of longevity, one could say: Marie-Thérèse Guilbaud will soon be a century old. She owes it, she believes, to the happiness of aging serenely in her house in the hollow of her mountains.. “At the Ehpad, I would have declined more quickly”, she said, combing her hair in her bed.
Accommodation establishments for dependent elderly people (Ehpad), Fabrice Gaillard did not want to apply either, when he chose the home help sector, after stopping his fattened duck operation, two years ago. One of his daughters works there as a nurse’s aide. “I prefer road wear to assembly line work. At home, we still have time to be moral support. » Fabrice wants to offer his beneficiaries what nurses and carers allowed his father, suffering from a tumour: to stay at home, until the end.
“We continue for them”
Thirteen kilometers of steep zigzags higher up, at the foot of the Piau-Engaly resort, the village of Aragnouet is the last before Spain. Gisèle Tabouni, 58, lilac blouse, prepares the room of Justin Valencian, 92-year-old shepherd “born in this house”, then go stir the mash to the neighbor of the farm opposite, on a respirator in front of Cyril Hanouna, in a modest interior. Farmer of Casta cows in difficulty, his son Eric Péclose would find it difficult to take care of her alone, he says. “No, but frankly, do you see them all at the nursing home? », asks Gisele. Seven years she’s been riding “up there”, where you have to put on snow tires in winter, sometimes turn back and leave the beneficiaries. “We should provide them with a helicopter”, half jokes Eric. The ADMR of Arreau covers a large area: 46 municipalities, four sectors, three valleys.
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