Several families declare this Wednesday in the JJudge No. 4 of the Plaza de Castilla in Madrid after the complaint filed – and which was not admitted for processing- against Ayuso for abandoning their elders to their fate in the first phase of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. They know that the Prosecutor’s Office listens to them in the face of their tragedy, but also that until now they have no record of any politician in Spain having been convicted , nor any manager of these centers for the elderly, for having denied the displacement to the hospitals of the elderly and dependent elderly when they fell ill with coronavirus.
“The figures are chilling” he recalls Miguel Vazquezspokesperson for the Platform for the Dignity of Older People in Residences (pladigmare). The official data of the inserted they are forceful. In these three years of pandemic, a total of 34,571 elderly died in residences. Until 20,000 of these deaths were registered in 2020 alone. Since then, hundreds of complaints from families and not a sentence.
The prosecution was clear. He would listen to the families of the victims, but without any commitment in the judicial procedure. Last February, the The Prosecutor’s Office recognized 106 judicial processes assets for the management of the covid in the residences. However, and up to that moment, it did not record anyNo specific conviction for covid.
Isolation of the elderly with covid throughout Spain
Madrid is one of the communities with the highest number of victims in residences due to covid in those first months of the pandemic, according to data from Imserso. It was in March 2020, when the Directorate of Health Coordination of the Community of Madrid signed a protocol, approved by the Ministry of Health, which prohibited the transfer of residents of nursing homes with a certain level of dependency or cognitive impairment to hospitals.
But the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Diaz Ayuso, was not the only one to sign these protocols in which the right of the vulnerable elderly to hospital health care was annulled in the event of symptoms of covid or any other disease. All the communities, whether or not it was collected in writing, chose to avoid the admission of these elderly people to hospitals to do not further saturate covid plants. Thus, the most vulnerable population in society was left to their own devices, insists Vázquez to Public.
Although, yes, the popular woman from Madrid had the worst balance sheet before her decision: in the first twenty days the number of deaths in these residences in Madrid was shocking. According to Miguel Vázquez, as recorded by Imserso, “close to 6,000 older people died alone and many of them without even being able to communicate with their families to say goodbye”.
was the then Ombudsman in functions, Francisco Fernandez Marugan, who urgently sent a series of recommendations to all the autonomous communities regarding residences for the elderly. In the letter, the Ombudsman asked all autonomous communities to improve the health care of residents in centers for the elderly, the information provided to their families and the protection of their rights. They still had to spend several months until the situation in these nursing homes was normalized.
The Marugán office recognized then that it had received a considerable number of complaints in which the relatives of the residents revealed deficiencies in their health care and lack of information and transparency by the centers. Furthermore, above all, they expressed their despair for not being able to say goodbye in case of death and insecurity regarding their rights at this time.
In Madrid alone, during the twenty days after the application of the protocol, close to 6,000 elderly without receiving hospital care. Already in November 2020, the Imserso provided its first official data in this regard and released a chilling figure: nearly 20,000 residents had died with confirmed Covid or with symptoms compatible with the infection during the first period of the pandemic.
Lack of data on deaths in hospitals
The Platform for the Dignity of the Elderly in Residences He will be in front of the Plaza Castilla courts today to support the families who testify before the Prosecutor’s Office. Miguel vazquez remember that “we will be in solidarity with them and ask for justice, the same that their elders were denied.” But the spokesman for this platform knows that everything that has happened has not only passed a judicial bill to those responsible “but also not a political one, you just have to look at the voting trends in the Community of Madrid,” he says.
“Political responsibility is evident, another thing is that society has not been able to act accordingly.”
However, the organizers of the mobilization before the courts of Plaza de Castilla are convinced that “at some point, some court will consider that there are criminal consequences for what has happened to the most defenseless elderly.” Vázquez also recognizes that “political responsibility is evident, another thing is that society has not been able to demand it and act accordingly.”
Also noteworthy is the data provided by the Prosecutor’s Office about how Only 5% of the affected families filed a complaint for the lack of assistance to their elders. Of course, so far, without any success.
The measures taken by the authorities in those difficult moments of Covid, which prevented the elderly from being transferred from residences to hospitals, only affected those older people who did not have private insurance. For this reason, Vázquez also accuses “classist policies”
Among these families that this Wednesday will be in court to testify before the Prosecutor’s Office is Ásister roomwho still remembers, between excited and indignant, how the mother’s last dayswho died alone in a residence in Madrid at the age of 91.
This woman from Madrid accurately narrates Public that March 8, 2020 “is the last time we see our mother.” The Amavir residence notifies them in writing that visits to the center are suspended due to the advance of the pandemic. “We said goodbye to our mother convinced that she was here for a short time and for her good. But we didn’t see her again“.
Days of anguish without knowing anything about his mother
Thus began a few days of anguish due to the lack of communication with the residence. “It was very difficult to talk to the professionals, because the staff is reduced, the workers fall ill with Covid, others come who don’t know my mother or the rest of the residents, and so the days go by without us really knowing what’s going on inside” , remember.
Angela arrived, with the excuse of permission to walk the dog, to approach the door of her mother’s residence. “But everyone who came in or out responded to me with a lot of occultism.” As he confirms, “not only did they not let us talk to her on the phone, or communicate by videoconference, it is that they did not even let her look at the sale so that she could see me and see her from the street.”
This woman’s voice cracks as she remembers the last days of his mother’s life. “From time to time they answered. They did not inform you of the clinical situation, they said that our mother was fine. Everything was calm. Don’t worry. My mother had been there for eight years. The days passed like this. Social alarm grew and we trusted them, on his word,” he explains.
On the 30th, the family of this elderly woman received a call from the doctor. “He informed us that my mother had suffered a hypoglycemia, that he has lost consciousness, but that he had already recovered”. The doctor confirmed to Ángela and her brothers “that he did not have a fever, that his oxygenation was normal. Breathe well, they tell us.” But on April 4, through a call, they were already informed that the situation of the old woman is dramatic. “That her lungs are flooded, she is unconscious and with a high fever,” she recalls Desperately Despite the serious clinical picture, Ángela assures that “in the residence they never considered taking her to the hospital.”
On the 8th, at 6:30 in the morning, the family receives the news of the death of his mother. “We deduce that she died alone and we don’t know if she suffered from it. We spent a whole month worrying, but we couldn’t communicate with her in any way.”
Angela and her siblings filed a lawsuit against Ayuso for reckless homicide which was dismissed. Today they will testify again before the Prosecutor’s Office. Despite everything, they hope that one day “justice will be done.”
