In the WhatsApp group of directors and managers of dependency care centers and services, comments are circulating about the information published in ARA about the fines of 5.2 million euros to geriatric residences. This is explained by the president of DiGESCAD, Andrés Rueda, who laments the “criminalization” of these facilities.

Poor medication management, inadequate or insufficient diets, poor hygiene, and failure to guarantee continuous care for residents are just some of the reasons why nursing homes in Catalonia have been sanctioned. Falsifying data, ignoring warnings from the administration, and obstructing inspections and the provision of information to families are also contributing factors. Since 2020, the total amount of fines has reached €5,321,733, according to data provided to ARA by the Department of Social Rights in response to a request submitted through the Catalan government's transparency portal. While the number of sanctioned residences is not specified, with the exception of 2020 and 2024, the number of sanctioning proceedings exceeds one hundred in all other years. However, the department allows residences that have rectified the infractions to invest the fine amount in facility improvements.

It's six o'clock on a Sunday afternoon, and Paco is heading back to the nursing home after having lunch at home with his family. The moment he steps out the door in his wheelchair, Antonia, his wife, collapses onto the sofa. "This breaks my heart," she says, unable to stop the tears from streaming down her cheeks. A recent decline in Paco's health has forced him to move into a care facility while she continues to live at home. Antonia has cared for her husband for years, even at the expense of her own health, and although the situation was no longer sustainable, they tried to postpone his move as long as possible to avoid being separated. Like them, many elderly couples are forced to separate after a lifetime together. While moving into a care facility is often the most logical decision at this stage of life, taking the step involves emotional difficulties. Paco is experiencing this change with some anxiety, because he says that many elderly people die in the center and that he would like to be surrounded by his family in his final days. "The centers are often the final destination; therefore, being admitted can bring with it a more existential loneliness, the feeling of never having been so close to death," acknowledge Laura Coll-Planas, a doctor with the Catalan Society of Geriatrics, part of the Academy of Medical Sciences of Catalonia, and Dolors Fitó, a member of the same society representing residents.

In the next decade the number of people over 60 and 65 years old in Catalonia will almost double with the arrival of the children of the generation of baby boomThis situation will further complicate the current shortage of places in nursing homes, with waiting lists of more than two years in many centers, and there are even delays in the case of private centers. In a new report on the socioeconomic impact of care for dependent persons, prepared for another year by the Union of Entities with the support of the Catalan Association of Assistance Resources (ACRA), the employers' association of large nursing homes, figures out the challenge of aging: by 2035, 80,000 new places will need to be created, and another 26,000 professionals hired, to be able to provide reliable care to this elderly population.

A dozen people are sitting in the living-dining room. Some in wheelchairs, others in armchairs. Almost all of them are women, half asleep, their heads tilted, even though it's only 10:00 a.m. and they've been out of bed for two hours. A José Luis Perales song plays in the background from a television that's on. The only ones who seem awake are a couple of elderly women cradling dolls, and another woman running the palm of her hand over the tables as if dusting, although she doesn't have a cloth. In the living-dining room, no geriatric assistant is watching. The two working this morning on the third floor of the residence are too busy attending to other patients.

At eight in the morning, half a dozen elderly people are already in the dining room. The geriatric assistants have cleaned, washed, and combed their hair and seated them at the table, which is set for breakfast with a tablecloth, cups, and plates. However, an hour later, no one has brought them anything to eat, and the elderly remain in the same place, patiently waiting for someone to serve them. The geriatric assistants are too busy helping other elderly people get out of the way.

It took five years, but a judge has finally admitted a complaint from the relatives of COVID-19 victims who died during the pandemic in Madrid nursing homes due to a protocol that stipulated they should not be transferred to the hospital, and has charged the two responsible parties. Remember, this represents 7,291 people, a figure that has become sadly popular and one that Isabel Díaz Ayuso's government has tried to minimize on more than one occasion. The judge has summoned Carlos Mur and Francisco Javier Martínez Peromingo to testify next Monday. The former was Director of Social and Health Coordination for the Madrid government when the health crisis began and signed the so-called "protocol of shame." The latter—according to victims' organizations—coordinated the technical protocol that complemented the former and replaced Mur in the position starting in May 2020.

CaixaBank has launched a strategy to attract customers over 60, a growing segment of the population. The bank, which has more than four million customers across Spain over the age of 65 and manages 34% of retirement pensions, has decided to launch a range of products and services aimed at this population, following the guidelines set out in the 2025-2027 strategic plan. The proposal includes alternatives for financial planning, but also leisure, training, and care options.

After the audience success of the documentary 7.291, Regarding the management of the pandemic in the Community of Madrid, broadcast on Thursday night on TVE with a 15% audience share, Isabel Díaz Ayuso has not sat idly by and has gone on the attack. In an interview on Cope, she boasted about how her government handled it, despite the fact that it officially resulted in the death toll indicated in the documentary's title, although she has reduced it by half this week, and has asserted that contradicting the confinement measures imposed by the Spanish government has allowed Madrid to become an economic powerhouse.

The Tàber nursing home in Barcelona has two weeks left before it closes its doors and the 23 residents with public places are distributed among the centres that the Department of Social Rights and Inclusion has had to find for them in a hurry. A vulture fund has bought the property, in the heart of Eixample, to build luxury homes, in an operation that is repeated in many buildings in the district. The management of the residence notified the relatives on 6 February that due to force majeure it would not continue with the activity, although weeks before it had already informed the department so that it would have time to relocate these very vulnerable people.

The explosion of contagions has also led to more restrictive measures in homes for the elderly. Unvaccinated people who want to visit their relatives in care homes will have to take an antigen test before visiting the centre. This is one of the measures established by the new protocol drawn up by the departments of Social Rights and Health and to which ACN has had access. The document, however, allows entry without the need for a test for people who can prove that they have a full vaccination schedule or that they have overcome the disease in the last three months. The new measures apply to homes for the elderly and people with disabilities, as well as occupational and day centres.

What good is it that 96.8% of nursing home users are already immunized if they still live "in prisons", while outside the vaccine coverage is lower and there are few restrictions in force? This is what is asked by the new platform that brings together family member organisations and that hopes to end a visiting regime that gives the last word to nursing homes and forces to make appointments.

In January, a judge in Seville forced an 86-year-old disabled woman to be vaccinated against the coronavirus, despite her son's refusal. Also in Andalusia, but a decade earlier, the courts had ruled in favour of the regional government and ordered the forced vaccination against measles of some thirty children in the Albaicín neighbourhood to stop an outbreak of this highly contagious disease. The parents objected on religious grounds and, despite the fact that vaccination is voluntary in Spain, the magistrate protected the common good. The professor of the UB Observatory of Bioethics Fernando García López brings these two examples to the table as a result of the debate on whether to force-vaccinate the 16% of the staff of health centres and geriatric centres that have not yet been vaccinated, although they have been given preference.

An outbreak in the nursing home Zoilo Feliu in La Bisbal d'Empordà (Baix Empordà) has caused two deaths and has affected 33 of the centre's 55 residents, most of whom are asymptomatic, as reported by ACN. As for the workers, five of the 56 professional staff have tested positive. The outbreak was detected on April 26 and the two deaths have occurred among elderly people with previous pathologies. On Monday, 23 of the infected residents had overcome the disease and are now no longer in isolation.

The Generalitat still has four homes under public control and has closed four more since the beginning of the pandemic. In total it has intervened 36 geriatric homes, either due to deficiencies in safety and hygiene measures or for other reasons. The casuistry is very varied and it is clear that the confluence between a virus that affects the elderly the most and closed centres in which many people gather in a small space made many residences find themselves without means or knowledge to cope with the wave of infections and deaths that came over them. Two thirds of the 12,784 deaths caused by the pandemic in Catalonia were care home residents, and half of them, some 4,400, died in care homes, as they were not transferred to a hospital because it was too late, because there was no possible treatment for them or because hospitals were overcrowded.

The elderly and disabled living in care homes will be allowed to go outside the centres for walks or spend the night during visits to the family home from this Saturday onwards. Thus, thee Department of Health lifts the restrictions it imposed a month ago, which were harshly criticised by relatives, who have insisted on asking for the measures to be relaxed, especially once most residents have already received the second dose of the vaccine against covid.

It has been months since most of them do not set foot on the street and families can barely visit them, but on election day the elderly may leave their care homes to go vote. This is stated in a document that the Department of Health sent on Thursday to the homes, which lists a series of measures that will have to be taken to avoid possible contagions.

The deadly trail of covid continues to wreak havoc in care homes: this January, on average, 19 users have died every day. This number is higher than the average for December (14) and which is close to that reached during the second wave, in November, which was 20. If calculated by weeks, the mortality figures are also overwhelming: between 21 and 27 January, 163 residents passed away, which represents a 60% increase compared to the weekly data reported a month ago (100).

The effect of the vaccines administered in the care homes of Catalonia is beginning to be noticed, according to an exploratory analysis of the Department of Health, which has made a follow-up of both residents and workers who are vaccinated. The monitoring has been done since the vaccination campaign began on 27 December until 17 January, and has measured the protective effect of the first dose of the vaccine.