The judge files the investigation to the Government for the covid in the nursing homes after listening to the ‘Voloh case’

The judge of Barcelona Joaquín Aguirre has archived the investigation opened as a result of the wiretapping of the ‘Voloh case’ of alleged corruption and financing of the ‘procés’ with which it was intended to clarify if there was irregularities in the management of the Generalitat in nursing homes as a result of the spread of the covid pandemic, according to legal sources consulted by EL PERIÓDICO. The magistrate agreed at the end of 2021 to dismiss the judicial proceedings as a result of the request made in this same sense by the prosecution, which was the only accusation appeared in the procedure. No association of those affected has appeared in the case, so the togado has stayed if someone who could exercise the accusation has already proceeded to shelve the case.

The Barcelona Prosecutor’s Office ruled out in the letter that a reckless manslaughter crime, as it was not possible to determine “for criminal purposes” a relationship of “direct causality between the deaths and the transfer of patients” to health centers, which according to the Civil Guard and in a specific case, those with symptoms of covid and with those who do not. It also rejects the existence of a crime of embezzlement in the hiring of some services by the Generalitat, in which the ‘exconseller’ of ERC Xavier Vendrell appeared.

The prosecutor Víctor Castell considered that there were no “objective elements” that prove that the displacement of patients with covid symptoms along with other healthy ones caused deaths. They were not tested, because they were lacking. He adds that there was no protocol for transfers at the time. Exculpation of cover-up María Cinta Pascual, president of the Catalan Association of Assistive Resources (ACRA) and the Business Circle of Attention to Dependent Persons, who testified before the Civil Guard at the beginning of the investigations.

Multitude of documents

The investigation began as a result of the conversations intervened with ex-minister Xavier Vendrell in the ‘Voloh case’. In the phone calls, the situation of nursing homes during confinement came to light. The judge opened a separate piece to clarify whether a crime was committed and asked the ‘ministries’ of Salut and Afers Socials (now Drets Socials) for a multitude of documentation. The investigations focused, in the end, on a residence and on contracts for the referral of the elderly to health centers.

The researchers initially suspected that in some cases the protocols did not work in some nursing homes, not even to manage the provision of body bags. The Civil Guard informed the court that they could have committed “Serious mistakes & rdquor; and possible lack of control in the transfer of people from residences to other centers and in the transfer of patients to hospitals, which were sometimes late.

The investigations do not concern only the time when the residences were the responsibility of the Conselleria de Afers Sociales, but also since they were assumed by the Conselleria de Salut, in April 2020, after verifying the seriousness of the situation. From that moment, it was established that nursing homes had to report existing incidents within 48 hours from the publication of the transfer decree and that these data had to be updated every 24 hours.

Apart from this judicial process, the Barcelona Prosecutor’s Office, like that of the rest of Spain, opened dozens of investigations to clarify the death of the elderly in nursing homes due to covid. Most were initiated as a result of complaints from the family of those who died in the first wave of the pandemic, but, in some cases, they were filed by managers of the same care centers. Practically all these criminal cases have been archived in the Catalan capital.

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The pain that continues

“I continue with sleeping pills, it is difficult for me to get up in the morning … it is that feeling that nothing will change, that they do not care about all deaths that does not let me move forward”, Enriqueta López Blanco is sincere. His mother died in 2020 at the Bertran Oriola residence, in Barceloneta. This is the last ax blow they receive from the courts, but there are already dozens of complaints filed by the associations of relatives of the residences to investigate the crisis of the geriatrics during the pandemic. “Neither by criminal means, nor by civil means … no one has paid for that, it is shameful and I think that as a society we must consider it. Their lives do not matter to anyone,” he adds. An opinion very similar to that held by Maria Jose Carcelén, from the 5 + 1 residence association. “There is no interest in knowing what happened, in doing justice. The deaths occurred, they were not taken to the hospital, those who arrived were dehydrated and full of sores. This is indisputable and there are culprits, it did not happen alone,” criticizes Carcelén. “The worst human massacre after the civil war was experienced in nursing homes. Neither the judiciary nor society has been up to par. There has been no justice,” adds Carcelén.