Spain was beginning to hear the word coronavirus everywhere, in mid-March last, when, in a small nursing home in a tiny town in Burgos , workers began to ask the management for measures to protect the 33 elderly residents of Covid- 19 -and by the way to protect themselves.

"We knew that what was coming could be devastating for the grandparents, so we asked them for gloves, masks, serious isolation," Carolina García , a worker at the Valle del Cuco Residence Hall, in Adrada de Haza (Burgos, 209 inhabitants) told EL MUNDO ), and also responsible for Occupational Health at the center.

"Well, do you know what they told us? That we were hysterical, that we exaggerated and that, in fact, it did not matter what we did, because, totally, the elderly were going to be infected all ", continues García, who cannot explain the shock that they generated that response.

According to his version, which is that of several other workers, as this newspaper has been able to corroborate, the management of the center resorted to the lack of resources to not especially protect the elderly, and in these remained "for about 10 days between March 10 and 20 approximately " -in the worst of the contagion, at the beginning of the state of alarm-, when he finally did order the workers to isolate the residents," but hardly without means, with a canister of alcohol for all. "

The workforce was already severely depleted, there were colleagues on leave, some on suspicion of coronavirus

Carolina Garcia

As a result of all this, the workers denounce, the death of 11 of the 33 elderly residents occurred, the intervention of the center by the Army's Military Emergency Unit , the dispersal of the surviving grandparents by other nearby residences and the complaint by employees in various instances.

Starting with the Mayor 's Office of the Burgos municipality, linked to the management of the center, and ending in the Labor Inspection because many of the workers are unpaid, they assure. The management has not provided a version of the events to this newspaper, which has contacted the director of the center without obtaining a response.

At the same time, the Court of Instruction number 1 of Aranda de Duero has opened proceedings to investigate the situation of the Valle del Cuco Residence in Adrada de Haza after receiving reports from the Social Services Management of the Junta de Castilla y León, the Prosecutor's Office and of the police forces.

"They are going to get infected, all of us do what we do"

The story of Carolina García and several other workers, and the consequent denunciation, begins "when approximately on March 5 we asked for means for what is coming our way, and they tell us what an exaggeration, that we are hysterical . Towards the middle of the month With 11 elderly people and several workers with symptoms, they admit that the contagion is already there, but the argument becomes incredible: they tell us that, well, what difference does it make what we do, if they are all going to catch it, they leave to infect, whatever we do. We are stunned. "

"At that time," continues García, " the workforce was already greatly depleted, there were colleagues on leave, some due to suspicion of coronaviruses , others due to the situation of evident risk. They continue to say, until March 20, that isolating the People are silly, that a residence is not a hospital, that there are no means to do it well and that, well, there is nothing else to do. "

Always according to his story, which on the other hand is perfectly framed by the chaos experienced in hundreds of centers like this throughout Spain during this unimaginable health crisis, the management agrees by the 20th to isolate the elderly in their rooms, "but without more measures, we are the workers themselves who have to wear masks and gloves, and they put a bottle of alcohol in the entrance for everyone ... " , he denounces.

At that time "we already had about 13 elderly people with symptoms, and we made the facts known to both the Labor Inspectorate and the Castilla y León Department." Garcia herself, overwhelmed by the situation, left the residence on March 23 , "completely fed up with what we were experiencing, and in the face of the management's total passivity."

Two days later, on March 25, the UME intervenes in the Valle del Cuco residence in Adrada de Haza. All the elderly are distributed in neighboring residences in the absence of workers in the center: there were only three employees out of the original 23 . According to García, even the management tried to get those who only carried out administrative tasks to become involved in the care of the residents.

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  • Burgos
  • Spain
  • Coronavirus
  • Covid 19

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