The Comisiones Obreras union (CCOO) has denounced this Monday the "vexatious treatment" received by the workers of the Bellamar nursing home in Platja d'Aro, in the Baix Empordà (Girona).
A former worker at the residence and an employee who still works have explained this situation. The union has filed several complaints with the Labor Inspection and the Mossos and the Department of Social Rights is finishing drafting a report.
The workers talk about the lack of maintenance and staff and assure that the treatment they receive from management is "vexatious" and that it has a "very serious" impact on the residents.
In a press conference at the CCOO headquarters in Girona, Marisol Lora, the dismissed worker, reported that the problems began when in 2020 there was a change in the ownership of the residence. A Russian fund took over its management and since then three female directors have passed.
According to his story, it was with the last one that the problem has worsened to the point of denouncing it at various levels. Lora points out that she held two meetings with the owners, one of them with the director present, but things "got worse, instead of better."
Lora, accompanied by Angie Neira, who still works at the center, has reported that there is no longer a backup shift and that "seriously complicates" being able to care for the elderly. Furthermore, they claim that the treatment they receive from the director is "vexatious" and that she does not even allow them to disconnect. "If you don't pick up the phone at 10 at night the next day you will have problems with her," they point out.
The lack of staff becomes even more evident, they say, when the cook they have has a party. Both Lora and Neira denounce that those responsible for eating are the assistants, who are also in charge of taking care of the grandparents. In addition, the doctor's hours have been reduced from 7.5 to 4.5 and they claim that the director does not allow family members to be notified when a resident falls to the floor.
The press conference was also attended by two relatives of people who had passed through the Bellamar residence in Platja d'Aro. Roser Nieto explains that he ended up taking her mother out of the center after seeing "how she lived." "She told me that she was not well and I just thought that her head was failing her," he laments.
Nieto says that the last straw was when his mother spent a week without electricity in the room. "She is diabetic, she needs care at night and people to pay attention to her," he remarks. In this sense, the user's daughter highlights that when she went to ask about the problem with the light, the director told her that "it was a technical problem." In all of this, Nieto says that he knew that his mother had fallen three times and that she had not told him.
On the other hand, Òscar Gallego, son of Saturnino Gallego, sees "very strange" what happened to his father, who died after falling out of bed three times, when "it had never happened to him anywhere before."
Gallego says that he expressly asked the director for restraint when his father was in bed and that he does not understand how he could fall.
Sources from the center's management assure that the problem is a "personal revenge" of the dismissed worker and that it responds to a "very serious mistake" that she made and that led to her dismissal.
The person in charge of the residence acknowledges some errors but makes it clear that they have been corrected and regrets the "crusade" against her.
In relation to the dials and calls outside of working hours, the management argues that it has been done promptly when they have had an mishap. An argument that the director also uses to justify that "sometimes" she had stayed in the residence to sleep when she had to work the night shift, but that "in no case" has she lived in offices or other rooms of the residence as the authorities claim. complainants.
In addition, he also denies the lack of personnel and assures that if there is no reinforcement it is because they comply with the ratio established by law. Finally, it also makes it clear that it will file a complaint against the former worker for harassment.
