With the apologies of the defendants in the case of the nursing home in Thessaloniki, where in August 2020 there was a flurry of cases of the coronavirus, as a result of which 28 elderly people lost their lives from complications of the virus, the trial continued today at the Mixed Jury Court of Thessaloniki.

The two owners of the facility, who are brothers, denied the charge of breaching disease prevention measures that resulted in the deaths of a large number of people they were convicted of, saying they followed all prescribed measures and expressed their dismay at the deaths. of food.

The first defendant, who is in charge of scientific matters at the nursing home noted that measures were taken as early as February 2020, as the people housed there are very vulnerable.

“Our work is a continuous commitment. You are always there physically and mentally. For this care to have an effect you have to be there and you have to show these people love. And relatives. It’s an ongoing commitment,” he said at the beginning of his apology.

“We had discussions about the measures we had to take. Initially, we excluded relatives from those treated, we decided to wear high-protection masks that were really hard to find at the time, booties, uniforms and we defined a protocol for the admission”, he noted and added that since there were no rapid tests at the time, they did antibody tests themselves before they even had relevant instructions from the authorities.

Anyone who had contact with a case stayed at home for 14 days and returned with an antibody test. The reception took place at the entrance with disinfection rules.

In April, the first instructions came out, we were monitoring from the EODY website, I was in contact with the medical association about the cleaning and case management measures. They had no reference to the tests.

The next instructions came at the end of August 2020. These gazettes never came, nor were they communicated to us.

Why not follow the instructions? We couldn’t find masks here,” he said.

“What happened was shocking for us. These people were family. It hurt us a lot. We lost our people,” he added.

He also said that the prevention measures have nothing to do with the response measures and that there was no measure for personnel control. “That happened later, at the end of August. The measures were communicated by the Region. On 7/31, two gazettes were issued and we were notified only of the suspension of a visitor’s permit. The other one he said about the two tests was never sent to us. When the National Transparency Authority came they told us that we would put in the comments that we did not take a test while telling them that we had taken antibodies. I think the agency itself was confused,” said the defendant.

He also said that in August approximately 300 tests were performed on the workers, while he estimated that the transportation of food to hospitals was not correct.

“Why expose them to such great danger? We were trapped. We couldn’t say no to the doctors. We continue to take care of people and solve problems. I think we did everything we had to do,” said the first defendant.

For her part, the second defendant, responsible for administrative matters, also emphasized that they did what they were supposed to do.

“The unit is my family. I grew up there. We have taken measures since February. We closed the visiting office and were looking for masks all over Greece because there were none. We did temperature readings, antibody tests, we kept employees home if they had suspicious contacts. Our daily life has completely changed,” she said in her apology.

“I missed the parties and the hugs. The shock was that we couldn’t be next to them, that they were closed and that we couldn’t hug them. I had learned that way since I was a baby. The death of these people has shocked us. It cost me too much,” he concluded.

The trial will continue next week at the request of the prosecutor.