The Prosecutor’s Office has summoned dozens of relatives of people who died in residences in the Community of Madrid to testify during the first wave of the covid-19 pandemic, within the framework of the collective complaint they filed last October considering that A continuing crime of denial of health care benefits for discriminatory reasons was committed. The first statements of the complainants are expected to take place this Wednesday, January 8.
This was announced by the associations Marea de Residencias and 7,291: Verdad y Justicia this Wednesday in a joint statement, in which they positively valued the Prosecutor’s Office’s move, which “contrasts with the passivity maintained in the face of previous complaints and complaints.”
However, both associations, which coordinate the collective complaint and sign as complainants, have warned about the risk that “the reported crimes will expire” if action is not taken “quickly”, a fact that would occur from “the second fortnight of the month of March”, five years after the events occurred.
“We ask the Prosecutor’s Office to prosecute the complaint as soon as it has taken statements from the next of kin, especially taking into account that the complainants have already provided abundant documentary evidence to prove the commission of the crimes,” the associations added.
More than 100 complainants
The collective complaint was presented to the Superior Prosecutor’s Office of the Community of Madrid on October 10. It was filed by 109 complainants who were relatives of 115 people living in residences in March 2020 (in six cases, the complainant had two relatives among the victims). Those 115 residents lived in 72 different nursing homes in Madrid. Of them, 111 died.
It is considered that a crime of denial of health care for discriminatory reasons was committed, punishable in article 511 of the Penal Code.
The four territorial prosecutor’s offices in the region that received the collective complaint have agreed to open investigation proceedings for each of the complainants, so that in total 109 different proceedings will be opened. The statements of the next of kin are produced within the framework of these investigative proceedings.
The complaint was directed against 29 people: the two directors of the Socio-Health Coordination of the Madrid Government during the first wave of the pandemic, Carlos Mur and Francisco Javier Martínez Peromingo, who in turn were the signatory and author of “the two protocols that prevented the transfer of Madrid residents to hospitals”; Pablo Busca Ostalaza, director of SUMMA 112 at that time; Antonio Burgueño, author of the Pandemic Shock Plan approved by the regional government, which “allegedly included a medicalization of the residences that was never carried out,” and the geriatricians responsible for applying said protocol in the 25 Madrid public hospitals, according to Both associations have recalled in the statement.
The complainants detail in their writing the discrimination suffered by their relatives in five areas, although what occurred is especially serious when the residences were not medicalized and when residents were prevented from being transferred to public hospitals. The other three areas correspond to the veto to care for residents in private hospitals, unless the patient had private insurance; in the Ifema hospital and in the medicalized hotels.
The Ministry of Family, Youth and Social Affairs has reiterated on different occasions that, to date, the justice system has closed all the complaints and complaints regarding this issue and that “partisan use” is being made of this issue, as expressed by the advisor of the branch, Ana Dávila, last October.
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