Madrid Health Official Admits Nursing Home COVID Failures
A former Madrid health official's 2020 email warned that nursing homes couldn't treat COVID patients and urged hospital transfers for savable.
Key Points
- Carlos Mur's March 20, 2020 email called for hospitalizing 'those we can save' and dignified deaths for others.
- Nursing homes deemed unsuitable; government's medicalisation plan failed.
- Hospital admissions from homes hit lows on March 20-22, 2020.
- Over 7,200 residents died without hospitalisation in March-April 2020.
A former health official in Madrid's regional government has admitted that efforts to medically equip nursing homes during the early COVID-19 pandemic failed, prompting urgent calls for more hospital transfers.
Carlos Mur, who at the time served as head of mental health at the Madrid Health Service (SAAS) and director of Sociosanitary Coordination, raised the alarm in an internal email dated March 20, 2020. The message, obtained by Spanish outlet El País, urged transferring to hospitals "those we can save" while providing a "dignified death" for others unlikely to survive.
The email highlighted that nursing homes were unsuitable for treating infected residents and that the government's medicalisation plan—intended to bring hospital-level care directly to facilities—was not working. Despite this warning, hospital admissions from nursing homes dropped to their lowest levels on March 20, 21, and 22, only recovering in early April, according to a citizen commission investigating the crisis.
Official data show more than 7,200 residents died in March and April 2020 without being hospitalised. Families have long alleged discrimination in access to public healthcare during this period, under the administration led by Isabel Díaz Ayuso.
The revelations underscore early awareness within Madrid's government of the homes' limitations, amid a broader scrutiny of pandemic response decisions.
Original Sources
This article was aggregated from the following Catalan-language sources: