Relatives of residents at two care homes for the elderly staged a protest outside Palma town hall on Monday. They were wanting greater transparency from the Council of Majorca's IMAS institute of social affairs and changes to the schedules for visiting.
In the case of the Bonanova home, relatives said that they were unable to visit for two months because of a Covid outbreak and that "as of today, there is a maximum of fifteen visits per day, lasting 45 minutes and at two metres distance". Bonanova, they noted, has 300 residents, so each family member can only visit "every ten or fifteen days".
The protest featured a performance to highlight death and depression, the situation in these care homes, which IMAS manages with "obscurantism". Family members have asked to be allowed to visit safely and with some physical contact to aid their relatives' "emotional health".
The other care home is Llar d'Ancians, where the IMAS visit schedule has been in force for two weeks. For Bonanova, this came into effect on Monday.