The Cabildo de Lanzarote has disseminated this Monday morning a statement signed by four employees of the union delegation of the Tías elderly residence, managed by the private company Amavir, which defends that "a distorted vision" of this space is being given. This is how they have responded to public criticism for lack of staff, material, and deficiencies in the care of the elderly and dependent people in this publicly owned space, but whose service is outsourced.
Last February, Comisiones Obreras announced that it had obtained four out of five delegates in the union elections of the Tías residence. However, for the moment the union had no record that this statement had been sent to the Cabildo.
In the document, the union delegation has assured that it speaks in "representation of a broad majority of the staff" when it says that, despite some employees meeting with Comisiones Obreras and a political representative, they did not know that their testimonies "would be used" in a "political or media" debate. The employees who sign the document have indicated that they did not want to make the center's situation public.
At the same time, they have flatly rejected that residents have been mistreated. "The elderly are not merely users of a service: they are part of our daily lives and of our professional and human responsibility", they have highlighted.
In the statement later released to the press, the employees have indicated that the center's management is "trying to clarify" the identity of the workers who have made these "statements" about the residence. Not clarifying whether those who reported the situation outside the residence are being investigated or those who recorded and disseminated the images, who would have already been sanctioned by the company.
"It is not fair nor responsible to generalize nor project individual actions onto an entire staff," they have highlighted.
Despite the fact that the employees have recognized "that difficulties sometimes arise" due to the lack of staff or the "specific conditions of the socio-healthcare sector", they have assured that "it is not new nor exclusive to the current management of the center". Furthermore, they have argued that "it is a structural problem that affects many residences".
Along these lines, the employees have assured that there may be "moments of greater workload", but that "it is not true that there is a single person attending to forty residents". Thus, they have assured that "the company has made efforts to cover vacancies and reinforce the staff", but that the conditions of the sector make it "difficult to find professionals".
Criticisms for the dissemination of images in the press
Regarding the disseminated images where humiliating treatment towards the elderly is observed, the union delegation has highlighted that the majority of the workers "do not share nor support this type of practices", which are "totally inadmissible" and that violate "the privacy, the dignity and the rights" of people.
To which he/she/it has added that its dissemination "has generated social alarm", which harms residents and "professionals who daily work in the center".
"Not all of us are the same and those people who may have acted incorrectly must assume, where appropriate, the legal consequences," they added. At the same time, they have requested that "the work of the entire staff not be stigmatized or called into question."