The Ayuso government delayed access to a list of 1,798 doctors to a residences manager | News from Madrid

He Isabel Díaz Ayuso government He received at the beginning of the Pandemia, on March 18, 2020, a list of volunteer doctors compiled by the College of Physicians in Madrid, but resisted sharing it with the high position that had to medicate the residences of seniors, according to Wasaps and emails seen by the country. Carlos Mur, General Director of Socio-Sanitary Coordination, asked the collegiate body of himself for help, which on April 20 passed him with the phones of 1,798 doctors. Between the first and second date there was a debacle in the residences of Madrid. Thousands of patients were not referred to the hospital and the doctors did not go to treat them either. Before the pandemic, about 50,000 people lived in Madrid. In March and April 2020, 7,291 of those people died without hospital transfer, according to community data. The National Statistics Institute gives a very similar figure: 7,262.

« Mur told us that it was incomprehensible, » says the then secretary of the Board of Directors of the school, Dr. José María Morán on this apparent displacement. « He feared he hadn’t started calling anyone, » he adds. « He also told us that he had spoken on this issue twice with the Minister of Health, » he adds in reference to Enrique Ruiz Escudero. Another source of the school and a source of the Madrid Health Service (Sermas) with direct knowledge of the management of this list confirms this testimony. The country has proven that Morán sent Mur that Excel on April 20, 2020, when the worst had already happened.

The database was since March 18 in the hands of the Director General of Human Resources of Sermas, Raquel Sampedro. Mur was his partner, the man who linked the health system and residences. He was the signer of the controversial protocols to limit hospitalizations from residences. Understood that these people would be properly treated in situ, As the head of both, Ruiz Escudero, who used on March 12, who used A new and ambiguous word: « medicalization. » Beclected, Mur told school that Sampedro had not sent him « that generous list, » Morán explains, citing the words he used. At the phone he perceived his frustration: « I noticed him, only in the face of danger. »

A source of the Sermas with direct knowledge of what was happening in human resources and that anonymity has asked for affirms that Mur complained. « He was asking people for a long time, but hospitals had preference to receive those doctors, » says this source. Mur, who was dismissed in May of that year and now works for the Andorran Health System, has declined to speak. Ruiz Escudero has not answered. The Ministry of Health ensures that it shared with MUR a selection of 700 doctors after screening the database. He argues that « the number of available professionals fell considerably » because some had already been hired by the community or by other autonomies, many were retired and « others had died. »

This Ministry, which runs from 2023 the substitute for Ruiz Escudero, Fatima Matute, has not answered the question of how many of those doctors were sent to residences. A spokesman says that « never » refused to facilitate lists and that they were already sent to Mur, to share it with the Ministry of Social Policies, then directed by Alberto Reyero, a politician of citizens who raised his voice against the management of the crisis by Ayuso. As the country saidthat counseling complained on April 8 that many doctors had already been recruited by hospitals and health centers. April 11, Reyero He wrote an email Ruiz Escudero reproaching that residences were not a priority: « instead of sending doctors, you send listings. »

Morán explains that Mur had asked them for the list before April 20, but they did not give it to him because Ruiz Escudero and his vicecase of health care, Ana Dávila, had been told that they should send it to Sampedro, and because the file contained personal data. Before, Morán had sent Excel to Sampedro six times, as the number of volunteers grew. He did it on 18, 20, 22, 29, March 31 and April 7. They were in copy Ruiz Escudero, Dávila and the head of the Cabinet of the counselor, Emilio Navarro.

Mur has counted on previous occasions that the residences were devoid of the toilets that were going to medicate them, but has never criticized their superiors in public. The families of the deceased who ask for justice believe they have reasons to do so. They hope it happens if it is charged, something that has not happened in five years of judicial investigation, but that Prosecutors have just applied. The Associations Truth and Justice and Marea de Residences launched a statement last Monday, March 17, celebrating this judicial progress. They included this message: « We asked Mur and the rest of the denounced to pull the blanket. »

Mur has spoken as a witness in The courts and in The Madrid Assembly. In both venues he declared that the elderly were going to be treated in residences by the health centers, but that plan was in booth water on March 20, when his government opened the IFEMA campaign hospital and sent there to More than a thousand primary care sanitary. This center, which Ayuso sold as a « miracle »did not admit derivations from the residences. Mur told during his parliamentary appearance that, the day before the opening, it was informed that IFEMA would only receive patients without problems for the basic activity of daily life and without cognitive impairment.

In 2020, Mur admitted to El País that until April 6 A relevant medical support did not reach residences, with the participation of Samur, Red Cross, doctors without borders, human resources of hospitals and professionals of health mutuals, among others.

Mur’s position had been created months before the pandemic, when Ayuso premiered the presidency. Without personnel or budget, Mur had to respond to one of the biggest challenges of the pandemic. He sought reinforcements to the desperate for the 474 residences of elders in the region. Asked for help to Manager of one of the greatest hospitals in Madrid, the clinician, and also an influential friend, the former director of Hospitals Antonio Burgueño, who told him about his daughter, Encarnación, who commanded a small team of toilets in what which was frivolously called « Bug Operation. » On May 13, he was dismissed. Ayuso He praised him in a tweet: « This change, » it doesn’t, « has to do with his work; we are renewing the Ministry and I have him. » However, Mur did not return.

Solidarity

The Medical College launched its registration on March 13, one day before the Alarm State Declaration. This institution that represents more than 50,000 doctors in Madrid, the largest of its kind in Spain, announced the initiative in a press release and enabled a form on-line. The interested parties were informed that they would be offered civil liability insurance and that their data would be shared with the Sermas. That same day, the College warned the counselor Ruiz Escudero and Vice Minister Dávila, according to Morán. Dávila replied that the initiative was « great » and that Sampedro would centralize it.

The idea was to take advantage of the solidarity of many doctors who, for different circumstances, were unemployed. They were medicine professionals who were not dedicated to attendance but had the appropriate knowledge, such as teachers, researchers, forensics, inspectors or workers of the pharmaceutical industry. Some recently retired, family doctors and pediatricians who offered to do extra hours, as well as fifth and sixth career and MIR students were also registered.

The Sermas created its own channel for volunteers on March 22, two days after opening IFEMA. The enabled mail had the name of that hospital: [email protected]. In that account 14,053 curricula were received, As reported by Sermas in his 2020 memory. There it is explained that 4,155 volunteers were sent to IFEMA and the management, that is, to hospitals, health centers and the emergency of Summa 112.

Regarding the residences, the memory details that its reinforcement occurred « taking into account the decrease in assistance pressure by COVID-19 in the health centers of the Madrid Health Service. » That is, the community acknowledged that it put those centers waiting until the hospitals felt relief. This moment, according to statements of the time, began on April 7. Ruiz Escudero spoke that day that, thanks to the descent of the occupation of beds, The hospitals had started « the replication »that is, the return to normal.

The memory explains that Serma personnel moved to residences under the coordination of geriatrics or internal medicine services to pay daily attention. Primary Care Health « 240 residences intervened » and « Teams for intervention of doctors and nurses were incorporated in the most critical residences, » says the document, which does not need dates.

IFEMA’s « unfair competition »

The school asked how many of the 1,798 volunteers of his list were used, but did not get an answer. They only know that the Ministry gave them the name of some 30 doctors to make the free policies promised to the volunteers. They do not know what destiny they were given. Morán suspects that the vast majority did not receive calls. « They put us meaningless complaints, as they could not place them, » says Morán. « That excuse is not understood at a time. Surely those doctors would have earned Mur. »

On April 14, Sampedro sent them a letter of thanks. The text says that the Human Resources Directorate had channeled professionals to IFEMA, medicalized hotels and also residences. He adds that they transferred lists to those health centers that requested reinforcements. Morán responds categorically: « It’s a lie. » He believes that this letter responds to the discomfort of the school for the lack of information. « It’s as if someone for a bad conscience sends you a photo with the sweater you have given it but does not plan to wear, » he explains. And he concludes: « IFEMA was an unfair competition for residences. »

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