The Community of Madrid has imposed a penalty of 33,820 euros on the company Macrosad, which has been awarded the management of the Muscatelares residence for the elderly in San Sebastián de los Reyes, for serving tubs of pureed hake, carrot and rice in this center that were expired for more than a year.
In an order advanced by Cadena SER and to which EFE has had access, the Ministry of Family, Youth and Social Policy details that a technician visited the residence on February 13, 2023 and verified, when checking the kitchen, that there were tubs of Hake puree with an expiration date of February 11, 2022, and “that they were going to be served”.
The company, for its part, based its allegations on the fact that said date was the expiration date and not the “best before” date, but without providing, according to the Ministry, “any data that would distort the detected non-compliance”, which is based on the conditions “to the quantity or quality of the food supplied to the users”.
Therefore, the Ministry understands that there was a “serious breach” of the specifications of the management contract, and imposes a penalty of 33,820.47 euros on the company.
Macrosad manages around twenty residences and day centers for the elderly, the majority in the provinces of Granada, Jaén and Seville. In Madrid, it has been awarded the management of the Moscatelares residence in San Sebastián de los Reyes and another residence in the Usera district of the capital.
In September 2022, a user of the Moscatelares residence denounced in the municipal plenary session of San Sebastián de los Reyes the “bad conditions” of the center, with a “lack of caregivers” and a diet “so despicable” that sometimes “hours and hours without eating anything.
The sanction to the company for serving expired food was signed on June 13, and that same day a second penalty was imposed, in this case for an amount of 16,910.23 euros and caused by the intoxication of a user who was not communicated to the Counseling.
According to the corresponding order of the Ministry, on March 18, 2023, a resident asked an assistant to refill a bottle of water for her; when she went to drink, she noticed “a strange smell like cologne,” and minutes later she began to suffer from a sore throat, nausea, and vomiting.
The medical staff found that there was foam in the bottle, with an “aspiration risk” for the user, who had to be referred to the hospital.
The Ministry points out that “at no time throughout that day” did the center report this fact to the General Directorate of Attention to the Elderly and to the Unit, as it was obliged to do, which represents a serious breach of the contract specifications .
Macrosad has been awarded the management of the Moscatelares residence until December 31, 2024, under a contract formalized in June 2022, with a duration of three years and an amount of 11,225,517.48 euros.
Last April, other complaints were made for allegedly low-quality food in centers in Arganda del Rey and Alcalá de Henares.
