Antonio Burgueño: Ayuso’s health advisor: “The elderly in nursing homes were left to fend for themselves throughout Spain, including Madrid” | Madrid

Question: What is the origin of your plan to medicalize residences?

Reply: The president called me on Tuesday, March 10 at five in the afternoon and asked: “What do you think of all this?” I told him that he saw it very badly and I proposed to him to make a plan. My idea is very military, very military and company. She says to me: “Tomorrow you will tell us at the Casa de Correos a [el consejero de Sanidad, Enrique Ruiz] Escudero, [el consejero de Hacienda, Javier Fernández] Lasquetty and me. “

P. What happened the next day?

R. I told them: “You have need of a war plan.” I don’t know if I used that expression, but one of those present said, “We already have a general.” I proposed that a person have sole command, alien to political command. I left and in a matter of 24 hours, I and my consulting team developed a program with 270 tasks that was presented on Thursday 12 by the counselor Escudero. The medicalization of residences was one of the capital points.

P. Did you apply to execute the plan?

R. I did not propose it. They didn’t tell me anything either. But I think whoever painted the plan should have carried it out.

P. What went wrong

R. The medicalization of the residences was not carried out. In the army everything is very easy. Hierarchy, speed and efficiency were lacking. It has not happened only in the Community of Madrid, but in the 17 autonomous communities. My plan was to medicalize them with the three thousand-plus primary care doctors in the Community, but they did not go (to the residences). Primary care in Spain left the elderly sick behind.

P. Why didn’t the primary doctors go to the residences?

R. It took a general. Give orders and give incentives for these professionals to be and also, very important, protection.

P. Whose idea was the protocols not to refer older residents to the hospital?

R. I have not seen those protocols. The geriatricians who produced them thought that someone would see these patients.

P. How does your daughter come to take care of the medicalization of residences?

R. At some point she connected with the Community of Madrid seeing the burden they had. It was minimal help. Someone told me that she was collaborating. And she said that they had to be removed. But I said no. That this was minimal help for what the residences needed, that they needed an army of doctors. And well … they did what they could. I don’t know, huh. I am not aware. Nor am I wearing it. They had no contract and did not pay.

P. Why do they stop on the 6th when this newspaper reveals that their daughter is working on the crisis in residences?

R. Well, the force of criticism of certain media is very strong and look. If the media does not understand very well that Antonio Burgueño delivers a plan and that he is a man who is not loved by the Community of Madrid, then nothing.

P. Did Squire stop him?

R. I don `t believe. Of course I did pick up the phone and said to my daughter: “What the hell are you doing? Stop helping because you don’t have a contract, you don’t have anything and they won’t pay for this.”

P. So your daughter cheated on the ambulance company Transamed?

R. So, if so, it is the ambulance company that has to deceive my daughter, obviously. Of course it is a company that I do not know. You really know more than I do.

P. They are bankrupt because the Community of Madrid has not paid them for the 12-day job.

R. I find it absolutely unfair that they did that and they were not paid anything. And if in addition to that they managed to do something effective for the residences, then they should be mentioned in the honor roll of the pandemic.

P. Carlos Mur de Víu, who was director of Social Health Coordination, admits that until April 6 there is no significant medical presence in the residences.

R. Clear. Well, many more forces from other latitudes begin to arrive at the residences. And even elementary doctors.

P. Why not sooner?

R. It was crazy. Everyone was overwhelmed.

P. Were the older residents left to fend for themselves?

R. I believe that throughout Spain they were left to fend for themselves, including Madrid.

P. Did you make decisions?

R. I only gave advice on the phone when asked. After three or four days I left because the Madrid health doctors opposed my participation.

P. Who in the Community asked for advice?

R. I gave it to whoever asked me. I know everyone, the Minister of Health, the Minister of Finance. The one I know the least is the president, whom I had only seen once, in 2014, when he was a member of the Assembly.

P. Have you been wrong with them because of your daughter?

R. I have not been wrong with anyone. My children’s relationships with institutions are theirs. I keep talking to everyone.

P. Have you been paid for your work?

R. I was not for that. I collaborate with my country but without paying the bill.

P. Why did you think that caring for the elderly in nursing homes was a good idea?

R. It is something I had thought of before. Before the covid, hospitals were frequently collapsed. When I was director of hospitals in the Community of Madrid, on Friday afternoons the emergencies of old senior citizens were filled. There was no doctor in the residences on weekends. Hospitals are not meant to be a cemetery. They do not have to receive the elderly in agony. They have to die in a residence, at home or in a hospice unit, but not in an acute care hospital. I proposed to the counseling in 2012 a plan to put public health doctors and nurses in residences.

P. But in this crisis, older people who were not terminals have been left out of hospitals. The protocols left the dependents out.

R. The dependent person with an acute process of course goes to the hospital, but if he is in a terminal process, of course not.

P. On Thursday there is a vote in the Assembly to disapprove Councilor Escudero. What would you vote for?

R. I am only sorry that my friend Enrique did not demand that the one who had made the plan manage it, because at the moment the crucified would be Antonio Burgueño.

P. Is Escudero going to resign?

R. I do not know. It is that this is going to affect many people from the Government, the nation and the Government of Madrid.

P. There are families who have brought this to court. Are people going to jail?

R. That I do not know. Because I don’t know how the courts will interpret what has happened at all levels of government. Let’s wait for the courts.

P. You said that you would be crucified if you had had to deal with the crisis.

R. I have said it. Put it as is. Or maybe in jail.

P. In jail, you?

R. Maybe. It is that you have to make decisions and some may not like or be rational.

Do you know of discrimination or irregularities in a residence in the Community of Madrid? Contact the reporters [email protected] The [email protected] or send a message on Twitter to @FernandoPeinado or @jdquesada