The telecare service that helps 210,000 Catalans was altered on Monday by a technical incident that caused the Tunstall Televida company computer system to stop working for hours, which manages alerts to help the elderly and dependents in Barcelona, ​​in addition to other cities and provinces of the community. From dawn to late afternoon, the breakdown caused the company's offices in Catalonia not to receive calls from users who have devices such as pendants and controls connected to the phone to warn of domestic accidents or health ailments.

Due to the failure produced at 6.30 am for reasons studied, the notices of people with telephone assistance were referred to company headquarters in other regions. Calls from Catalonia were screened to prioritize emergencies and not oversaturate telephone exchanges that are responsible for alerts from other territories, said a spokesman for Tunstall Televida.

The mishap caused a queue of unattended requests to be generated larger than usual; In mid-afternoon, the offices in Catalonia returned to recover the call flow to lighten the waiting list formed during the day, although normality has not yet been completely restored. Other attentions given at a distance - such as medication reminders to be taken in homes connected to the network or to inquire about the status of their inhabitants - ceased to be carried out while the damage was fixed.

Tunstall Televida has the concession of the telecare service of the city councils of Barcelona, ​​Girona, Lleida and Reus and of the Diputaciones of Barcelona and Girona. In the capital alone, there are more than 20,000 devices available to almost 100,000 people in 2018.

The time the computer system fell coincided with the great storm that unloaded in Barcelona and its surroundings . In any case, the company could not confirm whether the breakdown was due to the downpour that left damage, especially in towns south of the city.

A company worker pointed out to this media that it is not the first time that the computer system crashes in recent times. "Sometimes a quarter of an hour or half an hour fails. It happens frequently," he said. He said that the service "has deteriorated" in recent years and that "the best is not given at this time." The employee stressed that they usually go alone to "situations to the limit" to help "very vulnerable population." "Who is going to play life for a salary that without supplements can be 900 euros?" he stressed.

CCOO called an indefinite strike in Televida last summer that ended up being suspended. With her he was going to report bad working conditions, low wages and overloads for telecare workers.

The company recognizes other recent incidents, although it stressed that they did not cause a collapse like yesterday, the longest so far, he said. The City Council pays 34.2 million euros for telecare to Televida, who was entrusted in 2013 and awarded again in 2016. The contract ends this year.

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