29 mrt 2024 om 00:26 Update: 20 min. geleden
The lives of more than 4,000 corona victims in care homes in Madrid could possibly have been saved. The regional government should have allowed them to be treated in a normal hospital in the first months of the pandemic, an investigative committee says.
A corona committee, set up by Spanish citizens, draws these conclusions. The group spent months researching the stories of family members and nursing home staff, reports The Guardian.
They tried to find out how it was possible that so many deaths occurred at those locations. In the first months of the corona pandemic, Madrid had to deal with extremely high mortality rates. Mortuaries could hardly cope with the demand during that period.
In March and April 2020, a total of 9,470 people died in care homes in Madrid. That is approximately one in five residents. “They died clinging to the bars of their beds, trying to breathe,” one of the employees told the investigative committee.
The mortality rate is far above that of the other regions in Spain. According to the corona committee report published last month, the vast majority of the deceased were not treated in hospital. This involved approximately 7,300 patients.
According to the corona committee, the number of patients taken to hospital from nursing homes would have decreased in March 2020. That was in the same month that the number of corona infections rose sharply.
Nursing homes that were dealing with staff shortages, a lack of oxygen masks and the right medicines for corona treatments were said to have been left to fend for themselves.
Of the people who were transferred to hospital, 65 percent survived the virus. This is evident from figures collected by the committee. It suggests that many of the corona victims in Madrid could have been saved if they had been treated in hospital.
Madrid previously launched its own investigation
The Madrid government previously launched an investigation into the high mortality rate during the corona pandemic. But that investigation was halted due to early elections in 2021.
When citizens asked in vain whether that investigation could be continued, they set up the investigative committee. That was led by the former judge of the Spanish Supreme Court.
