‘Negligent’ care home suspends director

In a statement released on Friday, the owners of the Villa Beausoleil home in Chaville, near Paris confirmed that the director , “has been suspended from his duties until the completion of an internal investigation.”

The move comes after staff at Villa Beausoleil tried to return the elderly resident to her son’s home on January 4, after her family’s repeated failure to pay 40,000 euros worth of bills. But after finding no one at home the staff decided to drop the woman off at a local emergency medical centre,where they left her alone.

The co-director of the home, Richard Claverie initially admitted the decision by the staff was “clumsy”, but later  caused controversy when he directly challenged the pensioner’s family, accusing her son of “dishonesty” on French radio station Europe 1, and inviting him to a verbal "confrontation.”

“Why does this family never look after its mother? Why have her children never come forward to pay us?  They have the means – one of them is a gynaecologist and the other is a wealth management consultant,” he said.

The owners have offered to forgo the 40,000 euros in question and take the 94 year-old back into their care, but her family has rejected this proposal.

Separately, the Regional Health Agency criticised Villa Beausoleil for “serious negligence” in a preliminary report on Friday.