“Not even a tiny kiss?” Asks Benita, 91, as she leaves her residence in the Madrid neighborhood of Usera.
His grandson refuses, better with his elbow he tells him.
"Yeah, but that's not the same," he mutters, with how kissy she has been.
It's going to be a very different Christmas for Benita.
As soon as he arrives at his daughter's house, María Jesús, he checks it.
The first thing you notice is that neither her grandson, nor her two daughters, remove their mask at any time.
There are also no Christmas carols in the background and they try not to raise their voices.
They have the window open about half a span all day, enough for the whole house to be ventilated but not cold.
Also, since she can't stand for long anymore, the only thing she can help is peeling a potato or supervising her daughter from across the kitchen.
Not to mention that even the nougat are sealed in individual format.
However, nothing beats that this year there are not five at the table.
“My father passed away on March 26 from coronavirus.
We will try not to mention it too much, we will pretend there were always four of us, ”says María Jesús.
Benita has antibodies, she passed the virus asymptomatically and without fever.
For this reason, by living in Madrid they allow you to leave the residence with no other limitations than the general ones or those of the center itself.
Although the Spanish Society of Geriatrics and Gerontology recommends extreme precautions even in these cases and not base the decision to leave the family member on whether or not they have antibodies.
Benita will be at her daughter's house for two days, because she herself does not want to be away from what is already her home for so many days.
Instead, Catalina must be away from the Peñuelas Residence for a minimum of three days, also in Madrid, because the coronavirus has never happened.
His daughter Carmen has been in preventive isolation for a week to avoid any type of contagion.
On Christmas Day the two of them will have dinner quite early because then Catalina cannot stay awake long on the sofa.
Little more.
At 92 years old, what makes him happiest is seeing the nativity scene in place.
As there is no single criterion regarding the departures of the oldest of the residences on the occasion of the festivities, it is the regional governments that have announced their protocols independently in order to minimize the risk.
The general recommendations of the Ministry of Health for these guidelines are to restrict them to a single address, with a stable coexistence bubble, in addition to carrying out a PCR test before readmission and extreme vigilance after returning.
In Extremadura or Catalonia departures of less than 24 hours are not allowed and in others such as Valencia they must last at least seven days.
In addition, in many communities a few days of isolation have been decreed for later, ranging from seven days in Galicia to two weeks in Asturias.
This has made many families not opt for these outings.
Not only because of the risk it entails, but because they also do not want to have their parents, uncles or grandparents so many isolated days after the quarantine that have passed.
In fact, none of them want to leave Lansac-falcon's residence in Zaragoza, despite the fact that he can boast of not having had any positives.
Its director, Ester, explains that family members will be able to visit in six shifts separated by a screen.
They can also talk to them through video calls, after which they disinfect their phones.
“Every year they are made a special surprise menu for Christmas, but this year the 24 grandparents will be divided into two shifts to have dinner more widely spaced.
The crushed ones will go first, they cannot eat whole prawns or nougats, and then the rest, ”he says.
Gabriel Liesa from the Catalan Geriatrics Society is especially concerned that families are carried away by emotion because they have not seen each other for a long time, and that this causes security measures to be relaxed.
This could generate a contagion and that this is not detected by the residence in time.
"Unfortunately, we have already experienced how easy it is to broadcast in a space such as a nursing home where everyone lives in a community," says Liesa.
If all safety measures are followed, these outings can have a very positive impact on the emotional well-being and quality of life of the elderly.
María Jesús, Benita's daughter, thinks that it can be done without risk but it depends a bit on the families.
They, for their part, are very aware.
“After suffering from my father, the last thing we want to do is harm my mother, even if I have to hold her hand with gloves.
It is better to be like that than not to be ”.
