Madrid - As Spain struggles desperately
to cope with almost 120 000 coronavirus infections, it barely
has the strength to help its overwhelmed care homes and their
elderly residents, singularly vulnerable to the respiratory
disease.
With hospitals stretched to breaking point, the elderly are
being turned away, and the care homes, lacking staff and
appropriate equipment, must do what they can for the sick and
dying.
"When they are very sick - not only here, in more than one
place - ... when they see there is no solution ... they sedate
them and see how long they last, because they're leaving
intensive care wards for younger people," said Maria Jose
Alvarez, whose 85-year-old mother is in a home near Barcelona.
"It's sad, it's really sad. They don't deserve this."
The home did not respond to requests for comment, but the
local government in the area said half the home's residents were
in isolation. In addition, two-thirds of its workers had been
sent home because of the virus, a picture that the UGT union
says has been repeated across Spain.
After Italy, Spain has the world's second highest death
toll, with around 11,000 fatalities confirmed on Friday.
Of a total of 3 000 deaths recorded at Madrid nursing homes
in the past month, regional leader Isabel Diaz Ayuso said around
2,000 were likely to have been the result of coronavirus, though
it was unclear how many of those appear in official figures due
to a lack of testing.
At one care home in the Madrid suburb of Leganes, 46 people
have died since March 15.
Like seven other private care homes in the area, it has been
taken over by regional authorities.
Ambulance workers push a wheelchair with a patient at a nursing home during the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) outbreak in Leganes Madrid. File picture: Juan Medina/Reuters
"Faced with an infection of this scale, we simply aren't
prepared," said Antonio Morales, operations director with the
owner, Vitalia Homes.
He said at least 150 of the residents were likely to be
infected - but that some hospitals had stopped admitting
patients from care homes, forcing the residences to cope as best
they could.
A lack of testing kits was preventing staff confirming
whether or not the patients had contracted the disease.
And the few staff who are not ill or scared and still coming
to work often have to contend with a lack of protective
equipment such as masks and gloves, though supplies are
beginning to filter through.
"We're a care home, not a hospital," Morales said.
Union leaders say many homes are failing to adhere to basic
protocols such as separating healthy residents from those who
have tested positive or have symptoms.
Army units deployed to disinfect care homes across Spain
have discovered unattended bodies, as staff lacked the resources
to dispose of them properly.
Official data released on Friday showed that care home
residents accounted for around 40% of coronavirus deaths in the
region of Castilla y Leon, and a quarter in neighbouring
Castilla La Mancha.
In the northeasterly Catalonia region, authorities said on
Thursday that 31% of care homes had residents with coronavirus
symptoms, and that they had reported 511 deaths.