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Older people have been the hardest hit during the pandemic.

In the months of March and April, the majority of Spaniards saw from their homes, through screens that connected them with the rest of the world, how the Covid-19 infiltrated residences throughout the country, making them a real battlefield.

The Ministry of Health has not yet published the exact number of deaths in these centers during the crisis,

but it is estimated that it is around 20,000

.

It is a shocking fact that shows the vulnerability of the group to the virus, now again exposed to a second wave that is increasingly gaining strength and that has already broken into several residences in our country.

The unbridled growth of infections and the increasingly worrying increase in admitted and deceased persons are already beginning to alarm nursing homes, which fear another shipwreck.

Are you prepared so that a new wave does not drown thousands more victims?

Pilar Ramos, vice president of the Círculo Empresarial de Attention to People (CEAPs) and president of the Madrid Association for Dependency Care, points out that, right now, private and subsidized residences have more staff than before.

However, he

fears that the preventive measures of the health system will not be enough

: "The second wave will arrive and we will be without staff because we do not know who will take leave and who will not. All the children have started school and are already taking place leave of workers who are parents ".

These absences from work may be accompanied

by suspension of employment in public residences

, something that is already taking place in the Community of Madrid.

This is the case of Juan Carlos García, an auxiliary nursing technician in a residence in Arganda del Rey (Madrid).

At the beginning of summer they called him and more colleagues to sign a contract that would end on September 30.

"Although they did not promise us anything, they told us that the contract would surely be renewed until December, something that has happened in public hospitals," he explains to this newspaper.

However, Juan Carlos shows a letter, which he has also published through his social networks, in which he is informed of the end of his contract at the end of this month: "It has also happened to colleagues from other residences in Madrid, All public. We are astonished, do they fire the health personnel with whom he is falling? ", he laments.

The man warns that the problem is in the exposure of these centers to the accelerated progress of Covid-19.

"At any time the virus enters the residence, the elderly begin to present symptoms

and in just two days 12 positives are diagnosed

. It is something that I have already seen," he says.

In this sense, he adds that "the staff who have been treating confirmed cases must be sent home to quarantine. From one day to the next, 14 assistants may be missing from the center, something that would produce a daunting situation in the residences again".

In addition, Juan Carlos expresses that not only close contacts of positives would stop working,

but also all those considered at risk population

.

At his residence, right now there are nine absences of assistants: "As we have come to reinforce the summer staff, nothing happens. The problem is that next week we are leaving

and those casualties will cease to be covered

. I have colleagues who were infected , who have had many respiratory problems and have not been able to come for months. "

Jesús Cubero, secretary general of the Association of Dependency Services Companies (AESTE), recognizes that "now we are in a situation that is also complicated when working with one of the population sectors most exposed to the virus."

Therefore, it calls for

a greater professionalization of the sector

, with better conditions and remuneration in order to generate more stable workforces.

At this point, he regrets the shortage of nursing professionals in residences.

Cubero refers

to the Dependency Care Act of 2006

, when neither the population nor the life expectancy were the same as now.

"Spain is today the second oldest country in the world, with a life expectancy of 83 years. The profile of the people who live in the residences is that of an 84-year-old person, with various clinical diagnoses and taking five or more drugs a day. That is, we live longer,

but with a greater need for health care in the last stage of our life,

"he explains.

Specifically, according to a pilot study published in 2018 by the journal

Gerokomos

-a publication of the Spanish Society of Geriatric and Gerontological Nursing-, the elderly who live in nursing homes are, for the most part, women, with a mean age of 81.8 years.

They are usually widowed people, with a low level of schooling and

whose average stay in the institution is 21.5 months

.

In addition, almost 70% of them manifest some cognitive deficit and one in four is dependent on other people or devices.

On the other hand, more than 95% of the elderly need help to comply with the prescribed medication.

According to the general secretary of AESTE, it is urgent that residences require more health care than what is regulated by law.

Cubero insists that "

current regulations no longer respond to current reality

and need, among other things, the incorporation of more hours of doctors and nurses in our centers."

Lack of management and coordination

Another problem that residences have to deal with in this pandemic is the lack of coordination between the areas of social services and health at various levels.

Ramos criticizes the difference in the norms established between communities

or even within the same region

: "The problem comes from the lack of clear and uniform guidelines. For example, in the same residence in Madrid, where workers can come from different health centers, the measures to be followed are totally different from each other ".

Cubero, for his part, defends that, to improve management, it

is necessary to promote a great State Pact

to which the main political parties, the government, the communities, the employers' associations, the unions and the main associations of the elderly join.

"This initiative must culminate in a central coordination by the government despite the fact that afterwards each autonomous community makes its own decisions to respond to the new outbreaks in residences," says the secretary of AESTE, who adds that "the quality of services offered to the elderly

cannot depend on the postal code in which they reside

and, therefore, must be the same or very similar in each and every one of the municipalities of Spain ".

In this context, Cubero opts for

public-private collaboration

, whose benefits have sometimes been questioned by the government itself.

Specifically, the second vice president and minister of Social Rights and the 2030 Agenda, Pablo Iglesias, has already defended on several occasions his support for a public system in the face of the current housing crisis.

Cubero, on the other hand, believes that there is a lack of a coordination and management body that is led by the administrations and that has the participation of experts from the private business sector.

In addition, it continues that it is important that the State pact redefine the portfolio of services and provide the necessary financing to care for the elderly.

"The elderly deserve that we spare no effort to offer them the best care and guarantee their well-being," says Cubero, a statement shared by Juan Carlos.

The nursing assistant recalls that the elderly are the people most at risk from the virus, so for him it is incomprehensible that more workers are dispensed with at this time,

when in other sectors it has not been done

.

In public hospitals, the reinforcement personnel against the coronavirus will continue until December and, on the educational level, the communities have also hired teachers until the end of the year: "I am not saying that they hire us all, but that they leave someone," he asks Juan Carlos.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

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  • Residences

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