The Regional Health Agency (ARS) and the courts are wondering about a retirement home in Pontarlier in the Doubs. The reason ? Large numbers of deaths among the elderly in nursing homes, and the use of a drug potentially used to help at the end of life. Friday February 8, the ARS submitted the conclusions of its investigation as reported by the newspaper La Croix.
The investigation began following a complaint from a family of a deceased resident. At the beginning of December, the Regional Health Agency carried out an inspection of the nursing home. Two observations suggest that the establishment would not comply with the Leonetti-Claeys law on end-of-life conditions. On the one hand, an excess mortality of nursing home patients compared to the national average, and on the other hand the use of certain drugs very rarely (if ever) used in retirement homes.
An anxiolytic sleeping pill used in palliative care
It is the drug Hypnovel, whose active principle is midazolam which is pointed out. It is part of the benzodiazepines, sleeping pills, psychotropics and anxiolytics, often used in the context of anesthesia. The ARS is investigating in particular 33 deaths that it considers suspicious, underlines La Croix. The operation of the drug allows a small dose to avoid anxiety, and a higher dose to make you sleep, until causing death.
The Leonetti-Claeys Law of February 2016 authorizes doctors to induce “long and continuous sedation” in a patient suffering from an incurable disease and whose vital prognosis is in the short term. But the law specifies that this sedation must be administered to soothe and relieve the patient, not to help him die more quickly. In general, midazolam is used in palliative care units for people at the end of life, rarely in nursing homes.
Read also:
Woman in a coma for 14 years gives birth in hospital
Inès’ respiratory assistance was disconnected, despite opposition from parents
