Home negotiates relocation with 30 remaining pensioners

MARYMAR Care Home in Benalmadena was due to close yesterday (Wednesday), but at the time of going to press it remained open. Representatives for the company that owns the retirement home, Unicaja Obra Social, were held individual talks with each of the 30 remaining elderly residents.

Residents have been promised that the home will remain open until all the residents have been relocated.

A decision has not yet been taken regarding the future of the home, but the spokeswoman for the affected residents, Sonia Martinez, told EWN that Unicaja had promised to study each case separately.

Unicaja has reached an agreement with homes in Malaga, Coin, Ronda, Torre del Mar and Benalmadena, to maintain the same price they currently pay for seriously disabled residents, approximately €1,200 per month, while paying the difference on other homes for them for five months, until financial aid is approved by the regional government.

Emilio Ortega Cortez, aged 85, said: “If there is no payment offered from Unicaja then I will have to go to one of their other homes which are very far away. I will be alone because my family is in Malaga.”

Juana and Carolina Carro, aged 59 and 61, are both nurses; Juana at Juan Carlos Hospital and Carolina in Barcelona. Their 86-year-old mother who suffers from Alzheimer’s has been in the residence since September last year.

Carolina says such a move is stressful for someone without a disability, “but even worse for those who have. I do not want to have to move her and she does not want to leave. She feels as if she is being kicked out of her home. She has made friends here and she is being ripped away from that and will have to start all over again the process, which is detrimental to her mental wellbeing.”

Juana: “They are meeting with each of us individually. Everybody has a price and I am sure they will be offering each of us something different.  I do not care about the money, if we have to go then what I am looking for is a decent place with the same social interaction and care that this one did, and that is close to Malaga.”

Maria Carmen Navarro, 59 and her sister Maria Dolores had just come out of the meeting to discuss their 89-year-old mother, Isabel Barbado Luque.

Isabel is in a wheelchair and has lived at the residence for many years.

EWN reporters witnesses how she cried as she said goodbye to her friends and wheeled away to what will become her new home. “I don’t want to go,” she said, “I will miss my friends.”

 

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