The President of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso. Diego Radamés (Europa Press)
The PP of Isabel Díaz Ayuso, this Monday, for the eighth time since June 2021, opposed the assembly investigating the drama of deaths in nursing homes during the coronavirus pandemic or debating how to improve the functioning of these facilities. The Conservatives have joined Vox in rejecting the creation of a study commission on these centers proposed by the PSOE. In doing so, she joins Más Madrid's veto last week against a full monograph on these institutions. In the last legislative period (2021-2023), the Conservatives four times rejected the creation of commissions of inquiry promoted by the Left (not counting requests for rectification and the refusal to reconsider the situation); to a study commission proposed by Más Madrid; and another similar one from Vox, which the far-right party eventually withdrew due to pressure. A cataract of denials, to which there is one exception: the investigative commission set up in the 2019-2021 legislative period, when the PP was dependent on Cs and Vox, and which never finished its work because it was dissolved when the elections were brought forward became .
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“The PP is using its control over the assembly to protect Ayuso and not talk about the residences,” complains Manuela Bergerot, the spokeswoman for Más Madrid, the party that leads the opposition to the PP in the regional parliament. “It remains to be seen whether his management of the residence halls during the pandemic is criminal, but it has undoubtedly been negligent and immoral,” he says. “Because the state of the dormitories in the Community of Madrid after Covid is a trickle of scandals: spoiled food, poor nutrition, staff shortages, precariousness of staff and, as we have recently seen, lack of emergency safety measures.” , “Add. And he Stresses: “All this is the result of a cheap model that seeks the benefit of a few companies at the expense of the mistreatment of the elderly.” This model urgently needs to be replaced by another that puts well-being and human rights at its core.”
More than 7,000 residents died as a result of triage protocols that prevented their transfer to hospitals during the worst moments of the pandemic. This veto was most intense between March 9 and April 5, 2020 and was particularly significant between March 16 and 29. As hospitals freed up beds, geriatricians no longer acted as a filter and sick residents were readmitted, although the situation varied from hospital to hospital. Clarifying the details of what happened in the assembly is a chimera for now, as is examining improvements in centers that keep hitting the headlines due to food problems, damage to facilities or a fire that caused the death of advised three residents in mid-February.
“We don't want revenge or political bait, and it doesn't sound like we're taking revenge or sending a politician from previous legislatures to the wall,” explains Jesús Celada, one of the trusted politicians of Madrid Socialist leader Juan Lobato . “Not even close,” he emphasizes, after seeing that the study commission proposed by the PSOE has not progressed. “We don’t want to criminalize anyone,” he emphasizes.
“We are shocked that four years after the pandemic, the situation in the dormitories is even worse, with spoiled food, falling caps, unpaid wages and families who are not given any space in decision-making,” the socialist said after visits MPs in the centers. “The housing conditions have deteriorated,” he diagnoses, adding: “We believe that the PP is interested in politicizing this.” No matter what we talk about, Ayuso is the victim, the attacked. “They don’t want to look for a societal solution to a serious problem.”
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The speaker of Más Madrid in the Madrid Assembly, Manuela María Bergerot, during the plenary session on December 7, 2023. Zipi (EFE)
Ayuso understands that all rejected initiatives were aimed at politically wearing them down and not promoting improvements for residents. In this context, the PP has left defining gestures (the entire government except for one adviser left the plenary session in 2022 when the reactivation of the commission of inquiry was being debated) and used all its political influence to block any parliamentary inquiry.
First, in June 2020, Ayuso announced an internal investigation, which ultimately became an “informal consultation” between ministries on data sharing, as Cadena SER revealed following a request for information under the Transparency Law. Then, in 2022, he urged Vox to withdraw its crucial support for the reactivation of the investigative commission promoted in the 2019-2021 legislative period, but which was stopped by the electoral margin. “I would ask Vox if they would rejoin the left to twist and exploit the pain of families,” he said. That same year, he ignored an agreement by the Madrid city council to urge the regional executive to investigate the incident. Finally, the Baroness used the PP majority to block any initiative in the regional parliament.
“We will not engage in the revisionist game of the Left, nor will we take part in the initiatives that cast a shadow of doubt about the nursing homes in the Community of Madrid,” declared the PP, which in 2021, when she it was in a minority that they saw the accumulation of complete monographs on the treatment of Covid, vaccination and Filomena. “It is the home of many people, they work very well and are run by great professionals.”
A positioning that Vox has adopted on this occasion. “The Socialist Party would like to conduct a media trial on an issue on which dozens of legal cases are currently pending,” the party explains about the investigative commission. “Their goal is revenge, not improving services.” No regional government has supported investigative commissions of this kind, not even those of the left, Ayuso often remembers. And for this reason, he argues, this doesn't apply to the one from Madrid either.
PSOE spokesman Juan Lobato at a press conference on January 17th at the Real Casa de Correos in Madrid. Kiko Huesca (EFE)
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