Madrid, Jul 1 (EFE) of Social and Health Coordination of the Community of Madrid Carlos Mur as a witness for his relationship with the protocols for non-referral of elderly people from residences to hospitals.
In response to a first request from relatives, the judge summoned Mur to testify on June 15, but could not locate him because he works in Andorra.
On June 21, the plaintiffs again requested the appearance of Mur, who signed the controversial protocols that excluded the elderly from being referred from residences to hospitals according to their degree of dependency in the first months of the pandemic, given the importance of protocols in this matter.
The lawyer for the private prosecution, Andrés Ollero, has explained that he has requested Mur’s statement as a witness because in this situation he has the obligation to answer the questions that are put to him, while if he were summoned as being investigated he could avail himself of his right not to declare
It has also requested the judge to appear as witnesses the geriatricians of the two reference hospitals of the Adolfo Suárez de la Comunidad de Madrid and Amavir Arganzuela residences, which are the Ramón y Cajal Hospital and the Jiménez Díaz Foundation, because they established who was referred and who was not, depending on the degree of dependency and cognitive impairment, to ask them why they did not authorize the transfer of these patients.
Likewise, it has requested the statement of the relatives of the deceased so that they can express their discrepancies with certain issues that the directors of the centers and two doctors of the Adolfo Suárez residence have exposed in their appearances as investigated.
The first time they were called to the Court, they limited themselves to ratifying the complaint, without the Prosecutor’s Office or the defense being present, according to the lawyer, who has stressed that “they have the right to be heard.”
The complainants are seven families, six of them from the Adolfo Suárez residence, located in the San Blas district, and one from the Amavir Arganzuela residence.
A COFFIN, A DATE AND A NAME
Among them is Puri Prieto, whose father, Julián, died on April 2, 2020 at the Adolfo Suárez residence and who hopes to be able to give his opinion in court.
“The directors and doctors of the residences who testified in court confirmed that they received orders and that they could not do anything else,” said Prieto, who wondered why they did not contact the families or the press to warn that many people were going to die.
In addition, he has questioned the forensic medical report incorporated into the case, which is only based on the documents provided by the residences, without listening to the families.
He has specified that in the residence they told him that they could not transfer his father to a hospital and, when the medical coordinator of the Community of Madrid authorized the referral, “after sending him many emails, talking to him many times and insisting” , was not made because his father had already passed away.
“There is a sentence that I have engraved on fire, that the doctor told me one of the last times we spoke: ‘Puri, stay calm, we are going to help him die.’ And I said: ‘No, you have to help him live’, Prieto said, who commented that in the residence there was an oxygen bottle for all the users that was passed from one to the other and when there was no more, they put medication to make them fall asleep slowly
In response to the former regional vice president, Enrique Ossorio, who said that the relatives of those who died in residences had already overcome it, Prieto has stated: “You never forget this. They shouldn’t have died like this. They were denied everything. A pavilion was not set up in Ifema for the elderly. Thus, many would have been saved or would have died with dignity.
He has highlighted that it was “very hard” not being able to see the body at the time of the burial to say goodbye: “The only thing I remember is a coffin with a page that put the date and the name of my father.”