The Community of Madrid held 21 emergency meetings during the first wave of the pandemic as part of a shock plan by President Isabel Díaz Ayuso to save the lives of the elderly in residences, recording this in minutes that she now refuses to deliver to the Council for Transparency and Good Governance, a state body created to reduce the obscurantism of administrations.
To prevent the documents from coming to light, the Ministry of Health has responded in writing to that body that "they do not exist", but El PAÍS has verified the falsity of that statement, because it has had access to one of those minutes, dated April 8, 2020. Sources from the regional Executive at the time assure that an advisor to the Minister of Health, Enrique Ruiz Escudero, left a written record of these assemblies.
The documents recount the actions of the regional government to alleviate the devastation of the coronavirus in nursing homes, the core of the pandemic in the spring of 2020. Relatives of the victims blame the Community for aggravating the situation with protocols that denied entry in hospitals.
During the first wave, more than 11,000 people living in these centers died in the Madrid region.
Warned of the false response from the Community of Madrid, a spokesman for the Council responds that if this is the case, there has been a breach of the principle of good faith, legitimate trust and institutional loyalty between administrations.
“In the event that the existence of some acts that the Community of Madrid stated did not exist were proven, there would be a bankruptcy in the aforementioned principle that must be present in the relations that this Council maintains with it and with the rest of the public administrations”, says the spokesman in an email to this newspaper.
sensitive content
More than half a year ago this newspaper began the path to obtain this information of public interest.
In July, EL PAÍS asked the Community of Madrid for the minutes of the meetings for a request for access to public information, a process regulated by law that obliges administrations to respond to any citizen.
The technical general secretary of the Ministry of Health, Francisco Javier Carmena, responded succinctly that the crisis cabinet created for residences had no obligation to issue minutes.
Against this refusal, this newspaper filed an appeal with the Transparency Council.
In its reply to the Council, the Community gave two reasons for denying the information.
On the one hand, he said that the law does not oblige the crisis cabinet to issue minutes, making an interpretation that the Council questions, since the norm invoked, the state law of the Legal Regime of the Public Sector, says just the opposite: that they must be drafted in cases like that, because it involves decisions that directly affect third parties.
On the other hand, the Community argues that there are no records and therefore it cannot deliver them: “It should be clear that the obligation to deliver the records is not being discussed, but rather the impossibility of delivering them, as they do not exist.
Not being mandatory, and therefore not being necessary to draw up said minutes, the only conclusion is that they do not exist.
The Council wrote to this newspaper on January 26 to dismiss the petition, trusting the word of the Community: “Beyond the public interest that these minutes would have, given the issues that were discussed in them and the enormous impact that Covid 19 has had in Spain and, in this case, in the Community of Madrid, this Council must accept the allegations presented by the Community of Madrid”, says the resolution of this body.
“In relation to them, it should be noted that this Council firmly believes that, in its relations with other public administrations, the general principles of article 3.1.e)10 of Law 40/2015, of October 1, on the legal regime of the public sector, in good faith, legitimate trust and institutional loyalty.
This implies that it presupposes the veracity of the documents from other administrations and the arguments contained therein”.
[If you cannot see above this line the resolution of the Council for Transparency and Good Governance, click on this text]
The Council lacks the power to sanction or compel the Community to deliver the minutes.
The remaining option to obtain the documents by the procedure regulated by law consists of a judicial appeal.
The information that the Community of Madrid hides refers to very sensitive content, because its management of the crisis in residences has been denounced by organizations such as Amnesty International as a "massive violation of human rights."
Relatives of the victims who died abandoned in residences have been seeking justice for almost two years and point to President Díaz Ayuso and Counselor Enrique Ruiz Escudero among those responsible.
The head of Health announced on March 12, 2020 that the around 50,000 elderly people who lived in residences were going to be treated in them, despite the lack of health resources in these homes.
The decision was made in the same week that Madrid's hospitals were quickly filling up and authorities were realizing the magnitude of the disaster that the coronavirus was going to cause.
Two weeks later, with thousands of elderly people dying in an undignified way, Ayuso announced a shock plan for the residences and put Escudero in charge.
Between March 30 and May 29, 21 meetings were held with the participation of officials from three Madrid ministries (Health, Social Policies and the Interior) and representatives of the employers' association of residences.
The record of April 8 obtained by this newspaper shows how Escudero refused to send his doctors to the residences, ignoring the request made at that meeting by the Deputy Minister of Social Policies, Javier Luengo.
A day earlier, Escudero had celebrated in a radio interview that the pressure on hospitals was beginning to ease.
Luengo took advantage of this circumstance to remind him of the lack of toilets in the residences.
Escudero recommended that the Social Policy officials continue to call a list of telephone numbers of 146 mutual health workers that the Ministry of Health had provided.
Many of these doctors did not pick up the phone and others refused to collaborate.
Escudero recommended "printing more pressure when calling."
Alberto Reyero, then Minister of Social Policies, affirms that he was aware of this and other minutes, because they were sent to members of his team.
Other sources who worked for the Executive also confirm its existence.
[If you cannot see above this line the minutes of the crisis meeting of the Community of Madrid on April 8, click on this text]
"Decaffeinated" Powers
Transparency experts point out that lies in claims about public information are possible because the administrative bodies that resolve in the second instance do not have inspection capacity, so they must trust what public managers say.
“It is a deficiency that leaves many of these organs decaffeinated.
If you ask about something sensitive that can bring out their colors, things like this can happen,” says Miguel Ángel Gavilanes, a journalist for Civio, an organization that fights against opacity.
In
Scotland, for example, when an institution claims not to have more information and the applicant requests protection, the Information Commissioner's Office thoroughly investigates the case, according to Gavilanes.
The Council for Transparency and Good Governance was created in 2013 by a law that sought to reduce the obscurantism of Spanish administrations.
In 2016, the Community of Madrid signed an agreement with this body to resolve the appeals of citizens in the second instance while waiting to create an autonomous body, as other regions have done.
The Madrid Council for Transparency and Participation began operating in November, but for now the central body continues to respond to claims prior to that date.
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