The judicial struggle of the families of deceased elderly in residences in Madrid during the pandemic has conceded new setbacks in recent weeks. Two courts of the region who instructed two of the most relevant causes have decided to archive the proceedings, sometimes among harsh criticisms of the ‘protocols of shame’, but concluding that neither health nor politicians can be responsible for the criminal route of thousands of deaths. Judicial decisions coincide over time with a hardening of attacks on families by the regional president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, and her chief of cabinet, Miguel Ángel Rodríguez.
The State Attorney General, Álvaro García Ortiz, confirmed in mid -February in the Senate that the courts throughout the country process 91 judicial cases for elderly deaths in residences during the worst of the pandemic, and that about twenty are open in courts of Madrid: 19 are kept underway and eight have been dismissed and pending appeal.
Two courts of the region, as eldiario.es has revealed, have recently joined the list of archived cases. One of them investigated the death of the elderly in the public residence ‘Adolfo Suárez’ of San Blas and in the private with concerted places Amavir in Arganzuela. The other analyzed the death of a 72 -year -old man in another geriatric center in Torrelodones. They are two of the most relevant causes that were followed in the courts not only for the death of the elderly but for the role played by the protocols established those days by the Community of Madrid that, in practice, prevented the hospitalization of thousands of them. What family members have baptized as ‘protocols of shame’.
In both causes Alberto Reyero, Minister of Social Policies in the Government that Ayuso shared with Citizens. In all his judicial appearances he has ratified his rejection of these protocols, reneging his creation and making them responsible for thousands of deaths. Together with him, Carlos Mur has also declared, then director of Socio -health coordination in the Community of Madrid, who has offered two keys to all the judges they have called him to appear: the protocols were established so that the doctors had some criteria to follow, but they were not mandatory.
They have also declared in these and other judicial causes the workers of the residences indicated and their links in the reference hospitals during the worst of the pandemic. Based on the protocols, these workers decided not to refer the elders who subsequently died. And the judges have had a evidence that they have considered key to issuing the dismissals: the forensic reports that, in various causes, conclude that “no incurred was incurred in any kind of negligence” and that “the residents were treated in the best way it could,” says one of them.
The result is two cars from a court in Madrid and another from Collado Villalba that reach the same conclusion: the doctors and responsible for the residences cannot be prosecuted by criminal proceedings because, taking into account the circumstances, they did what they could. The doctors, said the Judge of the Madrid Sierra, “did not have treatments, medications or means of protection and the death was not due to any negligence on the part of the toilets.” The judge of the Plaza de Castilla also failed days earlier in the same direction: “It is obvious that the same cannot be demanded from a punctual and controlled situation as in the heart of the heartbreaking and unbeatable situation that we all suffer.”
The attacks of the Community of Madrid
The victims who have brought dozens of cases to the courts since 2020 have never shown special interest in imprisoning the workers of the residences, but in shedding light on an aspect that they consider key in the death of more than 7,000 elderly in the geriatric centers of the region: the health protocols of the Community of Madrid that restrict the derivation of these people to the hospitals. What they baptized a five -year as protocols ‘of shame’.
No court has considered, for now, that the implementation of these protocols from the sanitary dome of the Community of Madrid is criminal material. In both recent cases, the judges have understood that these criteria “were not mandatory for residences.” But one of the magistrates has left in writing his criticisms of his implementation: “As little is very debatable and its consequences were not well valued by political authority.”
The two judicial archives have been accompanied to a resurgence of the attacks of the Community of Madrid, their president and their collaborators closest to the families who have taken the deaths of their loved ones to justice. Miguel Ángel Rodríguez, head of the Cabinet of Ayuso, opened fire by questioning that a woman who came out in ‘The Evole’ denouncing the situation was indeed, daughter of a woman who died in a residence in the region.
Rodríguez ended up recognizing his lie and rectifying, but without explaining whether he had consulted any confidential database of the Community of Madrid to make that false statement and attack the family of the deceased. The regional president said to refer to the matter when the opposition reproached him again in the Madrid Parliament: “They are always criticizing us with the same shit. They have no humanity. ”
The judicial decisions known in recent weeks not only close two criminal causes related to deaths in residences. In addition, at least one of the cases, they reject that any responsibility is also required to the political leaders of the Community of Madrid: President Ayuso and his former counselors Enrique Ruiz Escudero and Enrique López.
The victims now contemplate the possibility of presenting new resources, going to other judicial routes such as civil or even contentious-administrative claims, and continuing to promote the dozens of causes that are still open, in addition to the new route recently open by the Prosecutor’s Office.
From the tide of residences, Carmen López understands that this situation “obeys nervousness, when they thought it was going to cover, this is still alive. In their were internal, no matter how much they want to cover it, they know that those responsible were those who made those decisions from the Community of Madrid, left abandoned to the most vulnerable people of this society. ”
On the archives of two judicial causes, he explains: “We no longer catch us in surprise, we see that justice is not for the work of acting, but that it is recognized that the protocols were a shame at least gives the hope of being able to continue looking for that justice and repair.”
“It has been a very complex and difficult situation, not being able to say goodbye to our relatives and not have evidence that the ashes that have come to us are yours. A lot of people are still in therapy, it is impossible to close that duel and what does not help is that the truth of everything that happened in the residences and how tremendous that assassination is not known, ”he explains to Eldiario.es. At the moment, the victims remember, there are various open causes, other pending appeal and several allegations that have been waiting for a response from the Constitutional Court for years.
Source: www.eldiario.es
