PANDÈMIA

"What I saw in the care home in Tremp is horrible"

The family of a man who died in the retirement home explain the pathetic conditions they saw

Mònica Bernabé
4 min
Al cementiri de Tremp van fer enterraments l’un darrere l’altre durant els dies més difícils del brot a la residència del municipi.

BarcelonaEvaristo had to stay at the Fiella residence in Tremp for a month, or month and a half, just long enough to regain some leg strength. He had had surgery on his femur and could not go home because he lived on a second floor without a lift. His son says that the man was admitted to the care home the 9th or 10th of November - he doesn't remember the date well - and that he wasn't allowed to see him again until two and a half weeks later, when Evaristo had already died from the coronavirus. "I found him with his eyes and mouth open, and his fists closed", says the man, who had to remove his father's body from the home himself.

This is the story of what happened in the Tremp care home, where 61 people have already died from covid. However, no one has yet taken any responsibility, and the town council remains silent: no one wants to talk about what happened in a home run by a powerful religious foundation in Tremp.

Evaristo had an operation on his femur at the Pallars Regional Hospital, in Tremp, because the X-ray machine was not working at the Vielha Hospital, where the operation should have taken place, according to his son. Before the operation "he was aware of everything and was autonomous: he went out for a walk, sat on a bench, went here, went there", his daughter explains. In other words, the typical life of a 92-year-old man who was doing relatively well. But after the operation he was left unable to walk.

"From the local hospital he was transferred to the health centre, but he only stayed there a little more than a week. So we decided to take him to the care home because we had heard good things, and they could also give him physiotherapy", the daughter adds. The Pallars Regional Hospital, the health centre and the Fiella care home are all part of the same apple in Tremp. One building is next to the other.

Nevertheless, the solution became a problem. The daughter explains that the father was isolated in a room during the first week that he was in the care home, because this is the protocol of the Generalitat for new admissions as a preventive measure to avoid possible infections. The second week the nuns who were in charge of the home did not allow anyone to visit him either because, they argued, Evaristo found it difficult to adapt to the home and it was better that he did not see the family. From then on, knowing how Evaristo was doing became an odyssey.

"I would call on the phone and either there was no answer, or they told me that the nun couldn't get on the phone", the daughter explains. Finally, on November 26, she was told that Evaristo had a coronavirus but that he was "stable". Two days later they gave her the fatal news: he had died. It was Saturday, November 28, the same day that the Generalitat intervened the Fiella home because 120 of its 143 users had coronavirus and some of the staff had also been infected.

A scandal

In the evening the son of the Evaristo went to collect the body of his father. In the hall of the home a doctor, a social worker, and a member of the centre's management team were waiting for him. They gave him a protective gown and accompanied him to the first floor: "They told me to go straight on alone down the corridor to my father's room". He says two women with Alzheimer's wandered down the hall. "I also met a South American lady who was cursing on everything because she said she was alone to take care of all the grandparents on the floor and that it was half past twelve at night and she still hadn't given them dinner. To the women with Alzheimer's she would yell, 'Go to your room'", he explains.

Evaristo's son assures that his father was in a bedroom that was not his own: they had chosen a large single room for him, but he was found in a "hovel" where the bed barely fit. "The back of the bed was completely raised, and he was covered with three blankets. When I uncovered him, I saw that his eyes and mouth were open, and his fists were closed. It's a scandal. What I found was horrible. He had died alone".

The man says that he put the father's body into two body bags, then placed it on a bunk provided by the workers, and as he moved it to the elevator the two women suffering from Alzheimer's followed him down the corridor, unmasked and unprotected.

"I won't make any more statements to newspapers, I'm totally disappointed. The truth has not been told, nor have things been told as they are", says Joan Antoni Mateu, rector of Tremp and president of the Fiella Foundation, before abruptly hanging up the phone. For its part, the Health Department also remains silent. They excuse themselves with the fact that the Lleida public prosecutor's office is investigating whether the management of the centre committed a crime, and says he prefers not to make any statements.

Self-criticism from the mayor

The only one who has provided self-criticism is the mayor of Tremp, Maria Pilar Cases, who admits that she should have controlled the situation better: "On November 22 I sent a whatsapp to the director of the residence to offer her help and she answered that she had everything under control. I didn't insist any more until the evening of 25 November when a member of the centre's management team alerted me that it was in chaos and that they needed plastic cutlery, buckets, masks and gloves".

Cases believes that in the future some administration should be involved in the management of the residence. Until now it has only been in the hands of the Fiella Foundation, which is linked to the bishopric of Urgell and has great economic weight in Tremp. Without going any further, the foundation gave the Generalitat the land where the Pallars Regional Hospital is currently located. Perhaps that is why in the municipality, with just over 5,800 inhabitants, not a single voice has been raised about what has happened in the centre: the workers and their families remain silent. Nor has anything leaked out.

Evaristo's children say that, when their father died almost a month ago, the residence has still not returned their man's belongings: neither the television he took with him to put in his room, nor the wheelchair, nor his clothes. However, they have not been charged for anything so far. They paid 1,500 euros a month.

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