Spanish care homes

Families facing up to high death toll as virus claims increasing numbers of lives of elderly citizens

Tomás Bernardo had been barred from seeing his father at the rest home where he was being cared for since March 7. Each night staff would call the family to give updates. At times the 84-year-old Casimiro was a little unwell but nothing dramatic.

Suddenly, the family were called on Monday night at 1.30am to say Casimiro had died.

“He died on Monday and the funeral was on Tuesday but we were not allowed to go and see [him],” Mr Bernardo, 55, told The Sunday Telegraph. “He was buried and I still have not heard anything from the home. It has been a disaster.”

In all, 20 residents died from coronavirus at Monte Hermoso, an establishment which is partly run by a private company and the Madrid regional government.

Across Spain, coronavirus has torn through care homes with a brutal speed, claiming the lives of at least 80 frail residents. As the death toll in

Spain jumped by a third to 1,326 yesterday, elderly people have accounted for about 33 per cent of all victims. The total number who have tested positive was approaching 25,000.

Spain is still far behind Italy, which now has the grim boast of having the highest death toll in the world with 4,032 fatalities, outstripping even China.

However, Fernando Simón, the health ministry emergency coordinator, admitted Spain, with a large elderly population like Italy, is about to suffer the worst. “The difficult days in which we must bear down are coming now. We must keep our focus,” he said on Friday.

Spain declared a state of emergency last Saturday under which citizens can only leave home to buy food, seek medical help, for emergencies or to go to work.

Police and the army have been deployed across the country to enforce a “zero tolerance” of those who ignore the restrictions. So far 88 arrests have been made.

The speed of the deaths at care homes has shocked Spain, a society where the elderly are revered.

Spain’s Left-wing coalition government reacted swiftly, promising an extra €300million (£277million) for regional health authorities to spend on more social workers and caretakers in residential homes. Pablo Iglesias, the deputy prime minister and leader of Unidas Podemos, a far-Left party which forms part of a coalition government with the Socialist Workers’ Party, said the financial aid was to “help the most vulnerable members of society”.

However, for Tomás Bernardo and his family, the cash has come too late.

“This government has acted badly and too late,” Juan Bernardo, another of Casimiro’s three sons, told The Sunday Telegraph.

Luis Seoane’s 89-year-old father was diagnosed with coronavirus at the Monte Hermoso home but was transferred to hospital. Mr Seoane, 52, a businessman from Madrid, told The

Telegraph: “My father is between life and death. It is awful. We have been let down ... Please let the world outside know that this is coming and if they do not take enough precautions they will be like Spain is now.”

Prosecutors in Madrid have opened an investigation into the Monte Hermoso home, whose owners have been linked to an organised crime