The magistrates will deliberate on an appeal filed against the decision of Instruction Court number 3 of Madrid, which had previously rejected the consolidation of the proceedings. The ruling by Judge Isabel Durante, who deemed the accumulation inappropriate, was challenged by the association Marea de Residencias.

According to accusations and family members, the different judicial cases share a common pattern of facts: the application of protocols that restricted access to hospital care for elderly people based on their degree of dependency or cognitive state. Several investigations point to the former director of Health Coordination, Carlos Mur, as one of the main responsible parties, having signed some of these documents.

The potential unification of the procedures responds to requests from victims' families, associations, and the Prosecutor's Office, who argue that a large-scale case would allow for a joint analysis of the facts and a more coherent determination of responsibilities. However, a previous resolution by the Madrid Court itself had already opposed grouping the cases, considering that each death presents particular circumstances and potentially different responsible parties, which would justify keeping the investigations separate.

The decision on April 16 could, therefore, unify criteria or deepen this fragmentation, with direct implications for the duration, complexity, and scope of the judicial processes. The core of the investigations revolves around the protocols approved during the first weeks of the pandemic, which established exclusion criteria for referring residents with certain levels of dependency or cognitive impairment to hospitals. Some of the cases regarding nursing home deaths have been closed, while others remain under investigation or have been reopened at the insistence of the Madrid Prosecutor's Office.