Vulnérabilités, responsabilité éthique et accueil de l’altérité durant le premier confinement de la crise sanitaire Covid 19 : l’exemple d’un Centre de Soin d’Accompagnement et de Prévention en Addictologie

The first Covid-19 lockdown changed medical and care practices. Although positive patients were prioritised and the focus was on the efficiency of the intensive care units, the relational aspect of care is central to the philosophy of French Care Centres for Support and Prevention in Addictology (CSAPA in French). The caregivers were impacted by restrictive aseptic protocols, with an increased risk of patients, that are already very vulnerable, abandoning or not following-up their treatment. Based on the case of Grasse CSAPA, the paper aims (1) to analyse, retrospectively, the ethical tensions triggered by the acceptance of otherness in patients with complex issues and (2) to highlight the inventiveness of the caregivers in their daily practice. The method is philosophical and conceptual and focuses on Levinas's ethics of the “face”, because the crisis exacerbated pre-existing ethical tensions concerning intersubjectivity. Caregivers had to face up to a heightened ethical “responsibility for others”. However, the crisis was also an opportunity to reinvest in relational care, by allowing them to detach from the primacy of sight: the masks sometimes helped and sometimes hindered care, revealing the shared vulnerability of both caregivers and patients. The health crisis reminds us that vigilance is always necessary with regard to the risks of dehumanising the relationship of care.