Relatives of 115 elderly people who had COVID without being transferred to hospitals during March and April 2020 – 7,291 who died without being transferred in the first months of the pandemic – have filed a collective complaint this Thursday with the Madrid Prosecutor’s Office in which they report the lack of assistance they suffered. Of the 115 cases that have been reported, a total of 111 died.
The lawsuit affects 72 residences in Madrid, the community where mortality in senior centers was highest, since their transfer to hospitals was hindered by the so-called “protocols of shame” and in addition there was no adequate health reinforcement in the residences. , despite what the government of Isabel Díaz Ayuso promised and announced at the beginning of the pandemic.
The collective complaint, released and supported by Marea de Residencias and the Association 7291 Verdad y Justicia, urges the Prosecutor’s Office to study “the discrimination suffered by people who lived in residences during the first wave of the pandemic.”
This is a criminal accusation, since for its presentation it appeals to article 511 of the Penal Code and the complainants understand that it was violated, since there was “a continued crime of denial of health care for discriminatory reasons.” The majority of complaints about the death of elderly people have not been successful in Madrid, since they have been filed one after another, with some exceptions such as that of Collado Villalba. In Alcoi (Valencian Community) a trial has just begun for the death of half of the residents of a senior center.
Ramona is one of those 115 relatives who have reported. “My mother died in Vitalia Griñón, she got sick on March 5 and we couldn’t take her out until April 3, but it was too late and she died. We are going to report it and we are going to go as far as we need to go,” she says, since before being able to get her out they suffered an ordeal: “We called the ambulance, 112, we argued with the director of the residence, we found out that they were only referring those who had private insurance… We will go as far as necessary.”
In this new judicial attempt to find “justice”, as they have been asking for in banners and rallies for years, 29 people appear as defendants. Among them, senior officials of the Ayuso Government (the two directors of Socio-Sanitary Coordination Carlos Mur and Francisco Martínez Peromingo or the director of 112), the external advisor of the regional government in pandemic Antonio Burgueño (author of the disastrous Operation Bicho) and also the 25 liaison geriatricians who were the ones who decided, according to changing parameters, who was or was not referred to a hospital center.
“We provided 60 official documents that show how it was managed – they are communications between the Ministry of Social Policies and the Ministry of Health – and it is seen that because they lived in residences they did not have the same opportunities as those who lived at home, although the residence was their domicile,” says María Jesús Valero, president of association 7,291.
Carmen López, from Marea de Residencias, has also announced that they are going to request a meeting “with the State Attorney General and the minister, because we want the Madrid Prosecutor’s Office to be reinforced, since these crimes can expire in March and it would not be “I receive that it could not be investigated due to lack of resources.”
Among the documents provided by the complaint, the two platforms in defense of the relatives highlight that it is demonstrated that the “shame protocols began to be applied on March 13 and that the medical reinforcement consisted of sending 24 doctors and 25 nurses” to a population of more than 40,000 seniors who lived in residences.
Source: www.eldiario.es
