There was a lack of communication and coordination, many nursing home users were isolated in their rooms, there were nursing homes that violated the right to information with the residents’ families, there was not enough protective equipment in the first wave, the first weeks were disastrous, the nursing staff These centers were unable to reintroduce the situation as they were overwhelmed, access to the hospital centers from the residences was unequal…
This was heard this morning in the Social Rights commission in the Parliament, before voting on the conclusions of the working group that has analyzed the impact of covid on the residences of Catalonia.
A report in which these shortcomings, and many more, are reported, but in which it declines to find culprits for the deaths of 4,566 residents in Catalan nursing homes during the pandemic. This is the official government figure, which Imserso data raises to 8,200 deaths, also counting residents who died in hospitals.
The different spokespersons for the different parties in this working group agree on one thing. The covid took everyone by surprise and especially affected older people admitted to nursing homes. “We didn’t know anything about this virus and the first weeks were disastrous,” admitted Raúl Moreno, PSC spokesperson.
Version shared by the spokespersons of ERC and Junts, although the parliamentary majority of those 3 parties (12 votes) have avoided looking for culprits for this drama. Because? It could be summed up with one phrase: “What happened was unpredictable.” Vox, CUP, En Comú Podem and Cs are against the report’s conclusions (4 votes).
Glòria Feixa, from Junts, has recognized in this line of not looking for culprits that “there were no protocols and we were not prepared, but that – she insisted – is not negligence.” “It was impossible to adopt isolation measures in the residences in this sudden situation,” she added, “and we found that our system was very weak.”
But a lesson has been learned from the experience and the conclusions approved yesterday outline a battery of measures so that history does not repeat itself.
The most important thing is the coordination between the social and health systems – it has been repeated many times that the residences were designed to care and not to cure – and the dignity of the staff who work in the nursing homes, with more workers.
María Elisa García stated that “this report is a farce, here neither the culprits are pointed out nor solutions are sought. “Those responsible for all these people dying have a first and last name and are in this Parliament: Salvador Illa and Alba Verges.”
From the CUP, its spokesperson, Laia Estrada, has maintained that the “report is weak and only seeks to save very specific interests.” That is why they voted against these conclusions.
Also the spokesperson for Comú Podem, Jessica González, has been especially harsh in criticizing the vote of her political colleagues who give a political “case” with these conclusions to the drama experienced in the asylums. “What use has a commission that ended up as a working group been?” she asked herself. “You’re welcome,” she responded herself.
Comú Podem criticizes that the report “does not reflect the depth of those expressed by the people (87) who have appeared in recent months to tell how they experienced the pandemic.” And the spokesperson for this party is not so much against “many of the truths that are said in those conclusions, as for having ignored in that document everything that has been heard and now is not told.”
And while the conclusions of this report were being voted on, dozens of people demonstrated at the Parliament door in an event called by the Coordinator of Relatives of Residences 5 1. This group described some of the statements that were made as “lies”. With this vote, this working group agrees.
This entity is especially critical of the conclusion stating that “the referrals of residents to the hospital system were made following medical criteria.” They maintain that until mid-April 2020, many nursing home residents were “excluded, discriminated against due to age and where they lived.”
María José Carcelén, from this coordinator, states in a statement that “between March 1 and April 30, 2020, 71.82% of the residents died without being referred to a hospital, which is very significant and demonstrates the health exclusion they suffered, since under normal circumstances it would not even reach 20%”
The Residence Coordinator 5 1 also criticizes that the solutions reflected in these conclusions are nothing more than “generalities and will be of no use.” As if the lesson had not been learned.
