[The COVID-19 funeral. A director of an ethical reflection space and a funeral guide look at the upheaval of funeral rites during the health crisis]. / Les funérailles à l'épreuve de la pandémie de COVID-19. Regards croisés d'un directeur d'espace de réflexion éthique et d'un guide de funérailles sur le bouleversement des rites funéraires lors de la crise sanitaire.

The pandemic has severely affected social cohesion and the traditional landmarks of our fellow citizens. In addition to suffering related to the loss of a loved one, disorganization of the funeral and the experience of confiscation of the funeral deeply affected the psychic life of the bereaved. Despite the adaptation of funeral laws during the pandemic, an anthropological discontinuity has emerged. This anthropological break prevented the dynamic of mourning and burial of COVID-19 deaths, all the while affecting the ritualization of people leaving at the end of life, the orderliness of feelings through funeral rites as well as the resilience of caregivers and families facing an unprecedented wave of deaths. This has resulted in both a pandemic-related mortality and funeral crisis and a human crisis revealed by the COVID-19 viral storm.

Law, public interest, and citizen ethics in the face of Covid-19

The first lessons from the Covid-19 health crisis are starting to point to a deep crisis in benevolent approaches to care, recognition, and professionalism, as well as considerable disarray as to the possibility of maintaining decent support for the elderly. In this context, ethical backup units were formed in the setting of the health emergency, at the invitation of the National Consultative Ethics Committee, by the Regional Ethical Reflection venues, aiming to provide relief to health professionals and all those grappling with ethical dilemmas linked to the Covid-19 pandemic. To provide ethical benchmarks, the National Conference of the Regional Ethical Reflection venues will also establish supporting tools for reflection or guides to help ethics bodies in their civic action. In view of the main observations, lockdown was at once the best as the worst thing, and the compounded confinement in a nursing home bedroom was a tragedy for many dependent elderly people. © 2021 Les premiers enseignements de la crise sanitaire liée à la Covid-19 commencent à pointer une crise profonde de la bientraitance, de la reconnaissance et du professionnalisme ainsi qu'un profond désarroi quant aux possibilités de maintenir un accompagnement digne des personnes âgées. Dans ce contexte, les cellules éthiques de soutien ont été construites dans l'urgence de la crise sanitaire à l'invitation du Comité consultatif national d’éthique par les Espaces de réflexion éthiques régionaux (ERER), avec pour fonction de porter secours aux professionnels de santé et à tous ceux aux prises avec des dilemmes éthiques liés à la pandémie de Covid-19. Afin d'apporter des repères éthiques, la Conférence nationale des Espaces de réflexion éthiques régionaux va d'ailleurs établir des outils d'aide à la réflexion ou « documents-repères » pour aider les instances éthiques dans leur action citoyenne. Au vu des principales observations, le confinement fut autant la meilleure que la pire des choses et le double confinement en chambre fut une tragédie pour nombre de personnes âgées dépendantes. © 2021

[EHPAD: Reintroducing relational life after the health emergency]. / Après l'urgence sanitaire, réaffirmer le droit à la vie personnelle en EHPAD avec pour horizon le respect de la dignité des anciens et de leur famille.

The health emergency linked to COVID-19 has been stressful for staff working in nursing home, doubly painful for residents faced with the risk of infection and the reality of family separation. We explore in this article some psychological consequences resulting from the experience of residents and caregivers in the waning health crisis, hoping that the experience gained will allow greater efficiency in the event of a resumption of the pandemic. At the same time, we proposed to combine this point of view with the more ethical one, taking seriously a fundamental tendency towards ageism in Western societies and what they reflect from the social ethics of care. It is now important to declare a refusal to "return to the abnormal", this medical and ethical prehistory, such as suffered by many of our elders and their caregivers during confinement.