Pablo R. Roces Madrid

Madrid

Updated Tuesday, February 20, 2024-14:45

The Juan XXIII nursing home in the Madrid neighborhood of Aravaca, which burned down last Sunday, leaving three women dead, has opened a new front between the Community of Madrid and the Government of the Nation. After learning that the center had deficiencies in its security and prevention from police reports, the matter reached the press conference of the Council of Ministers this Tuesday.

The Government spokesperson, Pilar Alegría, has pointed directly to "the management" of the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, to explain this event. "The pattern is always the same:

abandonment, continuous errors, poor management and a painful lack of empathy

," remarked the Minister of Education, indirectly establishing a parallel with the situation of residences during Covid, which has reappeared in the last week in the public debate.

This Wednesday, the reports from the National Police, advanced by Cadena Ser, alluded to the fact that there had been deficiencies in the security mechanisms of the Juan XXIII residence, with whom the regional government has arranged places, such as blocked emergency doors or systems against fire out of operation.

The Government spokesperson has asked in this case that the investigation go "to the final consequences"

.

Just a few minutes after these statements, the response from the Community of Madrid came from the Council of Ministers table. Sources from the regional president's team censure "their brutality" and assure that Moncloa

is trying to blame Ayuso for "responsibilities that are not hers

. "

"The investigation is open by the National Police, and its conclusions will be delivered to a judge," they say in the regional government.

In Puerta del Sol they point out that the Ministry of Social Policies carried out two inspections in April and August 2023 and that the facilities are "in accordance with anti-fire legislation." "

Blaming the president for abandonment is absurd. It is like blaming her for a fire in a restaurant

," conclude the same sources from the Community of Madrid.

Even Ayuso herself has spoken out through her Twitter account

accusing the Government of being "inhuman" and "eccentric"

. "The unusual statements by the Government spokesperson regarding Aravaca residence, blaming the Community of Madrid even for the accidents, make no sense," she added.

The fire caused the death of three women aged 90, 93 and 65, the last one yesterday morning at the La Paz Hospital, and left 16 residents hospitalized in a mild condition. According to the investigations being carried out by the State Security Forces and Corps,

the trigger of the fire could have been a defective mobile phone charger.

It was the residence's own workers who declared to the Police that in the room where the fire broke out, a mobile phone was being charged with a cable when the device began to burn, causing the subsequent fire in the room on the first floor where they slept. Lucía, 90 years old, and Isabel, 93, both deceased.

This new front between Moncloa and the Community of Madrid occurs just a few days after the situation of the residences during the first wave of Covid, which left more than 7,000 dead in the capital, returned to public debate due to statements by Ayuso in the Madrid Assembly in which he assured that "when an elderly person was seriously ill with Covid, with the viral load that there was, they could not be saved anywhere."

An argument that was used by the left-wing parties to put the matter back on the table, accusing the regional government of "serious deficiencies" in management and of "letting these people die" with the health protocols approved on those dates. . "In their race towards eccentricity, they are about to accuse us of genocide and I am not going to tolerate it," Ayuso replied yesterday, visibly upset with the topic.