by The parliamentary agreement, to which EL PERIÓDICO has had access and which will be approved with the votes of ERC, PSC and Junts, highlights that resources and personnel were lackingthat reigned lack of health knowledge and lack of coordinationthat the inspections were deficient and that hospitalized the sick in an “unequal” way. A document that has unnerved family associations who consider it watered down and cheap.
Families accuse the report because they consider it watered down and discounted
It had to be an investigative commission that later ended up being a working group. But Parliament is the first political institution in all of Spain that has wanted to clarify what happened in the residences during the pandemic. After listening to 17 speakerseach parliamentary group has drawn its conclusions, with the exception of VOX and Citizens who have not presented them. The commons prepared a document that did not comply with the formal requirements. The rest of the parties ended up voting in committee, and behind closed doors, on the definitive conclusions to which this newspaper has had access.
Health ignorance
The Parliament’s text does make it clear that Medical care within the residences left much to be desired despite being very complex diseases. He affirms that in the nursing homes there were “health ignorance” and “lack of healthcare resources”because the health system went on one side and the residential system on the other.
“Many of the errors made were a consequence of not having prepared structures and clear protocols,” the document explains.
But when it comes to talking about hospital transfers, they defend the protocol of the Medical Emergency System that limited the therapeutic effort to the elderly: “The decisions were made following medical criteria.” Even so, the text indicates that access to hospital centers by residents was “unequal”, due to “the tension of the health system” and “lack of coordination.”
Access to hospitals was “unequal” due to “the tension of the health system” and “lack of coordination”
The amendments of the CUP and the Commons They denounced that health officials violated the residents’ right to health by preventing their passage through the hospitals. They thus recognized the impressions of the NGO Doctors without borders, who experienced first-hand what was happening in the residences. But the rest of the parliamentary groups did not accept this reading and have been left out of the final text.
The document does not include the impressions of Doctors Without Borders, which believes that the residents’ right to health was violated.
The final document also does not include the request of CUP and Comuns to increase the number of 100% public management centers (they represent less than 1%) to the detriment of those of private management. In fact, the final agreement maintains that there were no differences in mortality depending on the ownership of the places. Also consider that public-private collaboration in the sector must be encouraged, increasing its financing.
First improvised response
“The initial phase of the pandemic was marked by a lack of means,” begins the document, which also highlights that in the first moments “responses were improvised to confront the situation.” “In the first days there were no instructions for the residential centers,” and when there were, the centers received an “avalanche” that was “impossible to assume.” “Many of the errors made were a consequence of not having prepared structures and clear protocols,” explains the document, which also insists on the scientific lack of knowledge of covid during the first months.
The only violation of rights that the document admits is the lack of information to families.
The parliamentary conclusions do not remember that the EPIS arrived at the Catalan nursing homes a month late. They do insist that there was no way to do diagnostic tests to know who had the virus and who did not, and that many of the sick also had no symptoms, so isolations were impossible at first. The design and architectural structure of most of the centers, hospital type with high density of people, they add, favored transmission.
According to the parliamentary text, the only violation of rights that has been detected throughout the pandemic crisis was the lack of information. “Some residences violated the right of family members to information about the health status and evolution of the residents,” the document states. It also points out that the measure of confining the elderly to their rooms to stop the spread of the virus had significant physical and emotional consequences. “They often didn’t understand what was happening and were deprived of personal contact.”
“The lack of personnel to care for all the residents, in addition to the precariousness, was the trigger for the critical situation in the residences”
The most compelling chapter is the one that concerns the nursing home employees. “The lack of staff to care for all residents, in addition to precariousness and low salaries, has been the trigger for the critical situation experienced in residential centers.” There is a lack of training, salaries are too low, working hours are excessively long, recurrent absenteeism and the staff ratio is outdated. “It is contradictory to want to recognize the residential sector as essential at the same time that there is a systemic precariousness that governments have maintained in the last decade,” the text admits. In fact, he remembers that the Generalitat’s measure to make up for staff losses during the pandemic was “ineffective” given that the 400 volunteers were not sufficiently trained or available.
Poor inspections
Another setback for the Government in these conclusions is related to the Generalitat’s inspection service, which “only” has 29 inspectors. The Parliament’s text states that inspections are “deficient” because they rarely act ex officio and that this “makes invisible the violations of rights suffered by people” who live in these institutions. Specifically, the text indicates that the inspectors “increased confusion” and “gave contradictory orders.”
Future improvements
The document proposes a series of improvements to be applied in the future to prevent this from happening again. The key, according to the text, is integrated social healthcare, where primary care doctors take care of patients in nursing homes, a measure that the Government has already implemented. “Medical care in residential centers must stop being private and must be provided from the public health system,” the document states.
More staff, fewer ratios and integrated healthcare, the keys to not repeating mistakes
It also calls for an “urgent” change to the proportions care with an increase in direct care professionals, more training and better salaries.
the Rstaff effort It is also proposed in the staff of inspectors, who should be more transparent and publish the results of their visits in each nursing home.
Finally, the text also recalls the underfinancing of the geriatric sector by the central government. The Government contributes 80% of the funds when the distribution should be equitable, 50%. The speakers also warn that current investment should be doubled to resemble neighboring countries.
