2024-03-01 11:01:00
the essentials Closed in December 2022 and relocated to Montégut, the former functional rehabilitation center of Saint-Blancard might be converted into a Vacances Répit Familles village, dedicated to patients and their loved ones. The project might be finalized before the end of the summer.
“It plunged the village into a depression.” This short sentence from the mayor of Saint-Blancard, Christine Huppert, is enough to summarize the devastating impact of the closure of the functional rehabilitation center (CRF) in December 2022, a logical continuation of the opening of the new health center in Montégut, a few months earlier. A week before this sad date, a silent march resembling a funeral procession brought together 200 people, worried regarding their future, that of the town and neighboring villages.
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“It’s a dead village”: in Gers, the closure of a rehabilitation center demoralizes residents
Nearly 15 months later, the situation has evolved and hope finally seems to have returned within the municipal team. “Things have progressed,” confirms Christine Huppert. It must be said that the councilor has worked hard since the closure of the CRF to alert the authorities, notably receiving last April the director of the Regional Health Agency (ARS Occitanie), Didier Jaffre. “He realized what was at stake,” she says. The mission is indeed a major one: to bring back to life an 8,000 m2 health establishment, on which all the activity of the village depended. “I don’t think there are other examples in the Gers of a closure of a company of 280 people in the same town. It’s not easy to carry as mayor. The challenge is there and it is interesting,” continues Christine Huppert.
A silent march took place in December 2022, shortly before the center closed. DDM – NEDIR DEBBICHE
In this relentless fight, the mayor of Saint-Blancard was therefore able to count on the support of the ARS, the former prefect of Gers Xavier Brunetière then his successor Laurent Carrié, but also the delegate minister responsible for communities territorial and rurality, Dominique Faure. “Several health and social projects are in the running,” reveals Christine Huppert. According to our information, the one which seems to hold the rope concerns the installation of a “Vacances Répit Familles” center, a holiday village dedicated to welcoming adults and children suffering from rare, neuromuscular or neurological diseases, accompanied by their whole family.
“I am very careful”
Discussions have been opened with a property manager based in the region. It remains to budget for the amount of beautification and renovation of the building, which is slightly aging, in order to make it attractive for families, the work already being estimated at several million euros. “We need pleasant rooms,” underlines the departmental director of the ARS, Didier-Pier Florentin, aware of the importance of this rehabilitation project for the future of Saint-Blancard. “It is the relaunch of a rural village through a classic tourism project on one side, and an integration, inclusion and respite project on the other.”
According to our information, the project to transform the former CRF might be realized by the end of the summer, for a hoped-for opening in 2025. “Things are well underway,” assures Christine Huppert, while specifying that “ other similar projects” are carried out elsewhere on the national territory. “I’m very careful: as long as it’s not done, it’s not done,” she slips. In the meantime, the mayor of Saint-Blancard is smiling once more: “Things have evolved a lot in a year and I thank all the people who are by my side and who support me, because there are many of them,” concludes. She.
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