“It was like a feeling of freedom,” says Concha Martinez, resident of the retirement home.
“It brought us a lot of joy and it made us a little more alive.
It was really very good, ”adds Rosa Sanchez.
It was their first outing in a year.
In Madrid, around 100 newly vaccinated nursing home residents were invited to a performance on Wednesday.
She painted her nails, backcombed her hair, and slipped her fur coat over her lace blouse: Milagro (miracle, in Spanish) Fernandez, 98, is going to the theater this morning.
She arrives in the hall to the applause: the staff at her retirement home wouldn't have missed it for the world.
Milagro had the Covid last spring.
The little lady heads for the exit, boards a minibus with three other residents: Antonio Alonso, 87, Concha Martinez, 90, and José Tellez, 92, who mischievously launches at the director of the establishment “Thanks for the tour!
"On the way to Gran-Via avenue, the" Madrid Broadway ".
"Are we going to eat somewhere after?"
José asks in the van, too excited by this first outing.
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A year since they had not left their retirement home.
A year without seeing Madrid and its crowded avenues.
Laura Egea, the director, would have liked to accompany her four residents, she who is "almost even more excited than them".
The first wave ravaged the establishment.
Discreetly, the thirty-something wiped away a few tears at the mention of the "tens", among the 180 residents, who did not survive.
“A mourning” still unfinished and untold memories.
In early December, a Spanish government report estimated that between 47% and 50% of deaths in the first wave of the epidemic took place in nursing homes.
The country has officially recorded more than 68,000 deaths since the start of the pandemic.
