The Justice condemns the Government of Aragon for not supplying protection material to the toilets against the coronavirus

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The Teruel Social Court has condemned the Administrations of the Autonomous Community of Aragon for "having violated the rights of workers" during the Covid-19 pandemic by not having provided them with sufficient protection material.

The sentence, released this Thursday by the Superior Court of Justice of Aragon, condemns the Government of Aragon, the Aragonese Health Service (SAS) and the Aragonese Institute of Social Services (IASS) for having violated the rights of workers and Teruel public employees in the prevention of occupational hazards by not providing them with adequate personal protective equipment (PPE) to protect themselves against SARS-Cov-2 and against the risk of infection and infection from Covid-19 disease.

The judge of the Social Court of Teruel, Elena Alcalde, estimates, in her sentence, the demand presented by him by the Aragonese Federation of Trade Unions and Associations of Primary and Primary Care Doctors (FASAMET).

And it obliges the aforementioned public administrations to provide the appropriate personal protection equipment (PPE) to the public health employees of classification group A, in all health centers, health units, social-health or social, public, private and private centers. intervened, directed or coordinated, from the province of Teruel.

It specifies that these equipment must be adequate given the risks of exposure to the biological agent SARS-CoV-2 virus and the risk of contagion or infection that could lead to the development of Covid-19 disease.

In the extensive and detailed sentence, the judge focuses the legal debate on the protection of fundamental rights and the prevention of occupational risks and against the arguments put forward by the co-defendant administrations.

He maintains that "the autonomous administration maintains, within its sphere of competence, the management of the corresponding health services, and must ensure their proper functioning at all times."

For this reason, the Aragonese Government and the dependent autonomous organisms (SAS and IASS) "have the duty to protect the personnel who are at their service from the occupational risks that they may suffer in the course of their work."

The magistrate understands that, "faced with a pandemic caused by the virus called Covid-19, they are in charge of preventing the risk of contagion and, once planned, adopt measures to protect their employees and workers so that they are not affected in their entirety physical and health, not even his life. "

Regarding what is argued by the co-defendant administrations that health is not a fundamental right and that therefore the lawsuit that has been raised is not consistent, the magistrate responds that "there is such an intimate relationship between health and physical integrity, and that there could be a violation of article 15 of the Constitution, when a serious risk to workers' health is generated, omitting the protection and prevention obligations that are the responsibility of the employer ".

In its reasoning, it stresses that "the declaration of the State of Alarm does not entail the suspension of the fundamental rights referred to in the lawsuit, such as life, physical integrity, or health, nor does it imply the suspension of the rights to protection and prevention of occupational hazards".

The magistrate rejects the premise of the administrations that we are faced with an assumption of force majeure, unpredictable and inevitable.

He argues against this that "the pandemic, and consequently the health crisis at hand, is not an event of force majeure or catastrophic risk, nor an event that could not have been foreseen or that was inevitable."

For this reason, he understands that the Administration should have acted "according to the precautionary principle, in accordance with that new order evidenced by the exposed coordinates" (referring to the repeated announcements made by the WHO - Proven fact III "timeline of WHO's action "-) and concludes by saying that" the need to have abundant EPIS for the healthcare providers should have been foreseen in order to protect them against the risk of Covid-19 contagion, which would result in the protection of the rest of the citizenry. "

In one of the paragraphs of the sentence, the magistrate acknowledges that "the employees and health workers have been developing their work, despite the serious and imminent risk to their life and health due to their exposure to Covid-19, and this, fundamentally , due to the lack of adequate individual protection means, even though they could have interrupted and abandoned their activity ".

He adds that, "thanks to their vocation to serve others, not only have they not paralyzed their work, despite the precarious protection conditions, but they have heroically developed it, and have even fulfilled the obligations imposed in art. 29. 2 of the Occupational Risk Prevention Law ".

An appeal can be filed against this judgment before the Social Chamber of the TSJ of Aragon within 5 working days.

Similar complaints were presented by the medical unions and health associations in the Social Courts of Huesca and Zaragoza, pending judgment.

In accordance with the criteria of The Trust Project

• Aragon
• Teruel
• Saragossa
• society
• Health
• Coronavirus
• State of alarm

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