In a few days it will be the fourth anniversary of the first diagnosed with covid in Catalonia. The pandemic cannot be revisited with a spirit of justice or vengeance. The overflow of the individual and collective psyche was widespread. The lack of resources – material and human – and the lack of scientific knowledge did the rest. That the institutions, regardless of the place and the color that managed them, improvised and tried their luck was inevitable. Therefore, whoever pretends to become a sheriff of the medical decisions of the day is nothing more than a coward.
But it would also be someone who aspires to the shelter of forgetfulness so that a few things that happened fall into oblivion. And of what happened, the most serious was the treatment received by the elderly admitted to the residences. Too many people died suffocated, imprisoned in a room without receiving medical attention, in many cases not even of a palliative nature.
This happened in Madrid, what is so much talked about? Yes. But also in Catalonia! Or in many other places in Spain. And since until artificial intelligence determines otherwise it still makes sense for humans to ask forgiveness from the dead, perhaps we should apply ourselves to the formula test now that enough time has passed. This one might help: we didn’t know how to do it better and we couldn’t do it better; nevertheless, forgive us for what we did to you.
Parliament approved yesterday the 166 pages of the report of the working group on the impact of covid on the residences. It’s not apologizing. But it is the acceptance of serious shortcomings in our care system for the elderly during the pandemic that remain in the present. There are paragraphs of extreme harshness about what happened in the conclusions of each party separately. Those of a joint nature, on the other hand, are more sugary.
However, we do not deduct an iota of value from all that it has, since sweetened or not it presents an admittedly bleak scenario. We also add that the Parliament is the only Spanish institution that has dared to delve into what has happened. So let’s also give it the value of uniqueness. And let’s assume, all this is asking for, the capacity for radical transformation of the residential system that continues to fail.
Today in this article it was time to talk about Feijóo, about Putin already directly threatening Europeans through the Baltic countries or the chapter of Narcos España in which civil guards are executed. But for a day, let’s leave the script of the rabid current affairs. Because the Parliament’s report deserves lines to remember the 4,600 deaths in Catalan nursing homes in conditions of insufficient medical care at best and non-existent at worst. Not to look for culprits – it was a pandemic!–, but not to forget how and under what conditions they died. The hospital collapse justified the selection and death sentence of many elderly people – it hurts to write it; therefore, imagine making the decision – but not total abandonment in the final transit.
Back to the present, Spain continues to allocate 0.75% of GDP to finance dependency compared to 1.5% of the EU average (2.8% in the eight richest countries of the Community zone). The cost of a nurse in a hospital can be 91% higher than the equivalent in a residence. In the case of assistants, the difference can reach 57.4%, according to data from the same sector, so it is difficult to recruit professionals and impossible to retain them. It is the cost of chronic underfinancing. Nor has there yet been the promised increase in home care to the detriment of the institutionalization (internally) of the elderly in need, since the figures are still those of 2013. And the effort that began to achieve a more effective integration of health and residential services also leaves much to be desired today. Parliament’s report is a good day to remember these things. No acronyms in the middle or birth messages. Just thinking about the old people they were, are and will be. The most political article, but without any politicking.
