Another Coronavirus Care Home Catastrophe is on the Cards.
Fool me once, more fool you; fool me twice, more fool me as the saying goes and sadly in a rather twisted way it fits with the governmental response to COVID-19 this year, with the deaths of tens of thousands of people. Despite promising to ‘learn the lessons’ and having a summer to do so where cases had dropped, it’s becoming clear that isn’t the case. Testing and tracing has been screwed up, handed to profiteers instead of being run by people who would know what they were doing & overseen by Dido Harding whose litany of career failure would give Chris Grayling a run for his money. Advice has been given that has been contradictory, exemplified most recently with the rule of six, that instructs us to not have family members around unless we’re going to shoot some wildlife. A family of four can have gran around, but a family of 6 cannot, which is senseless and let’s not forget that this doesn’t apply in workplaces or schools because the economy matters more and we need you at work. Cram those kids onto the school bus, I’m sure the virus doesn’t use public transport anyway!
But one of the worst aspects, the biggest scandals earlier this year was the news that Covid infected elderly patients were being discharged out of our hospitals and into care homes, often with little or no PPE. Despite anyone whatever age being able to transmit the virus, those at greatest risk of becoming seriously ill are older people.
Matt Hancock the Health Secretary and other Tory ministers all talked of the protective ring thrown around care homes at the time, but it was all a lie. The Queens Nursing Institute, a charity focused on the improvement of nursing care of people within their own homes and as such care homes come under their remit, found the truth to be anything but a protective ring. They discovered illegal do not resuscitate orders were placed on some residents, that hospitals, despite being there to offer universal healthcare, were told not to admit care home patients and given that Covid patients were being discharged into care homes at the same time, it’s hard not to see care homes being turned into the equivalent of leper colonies, filled with the most vulnerable people to this virus.
A survey carried out by this charity also found that of the 163 care homes they looked at, 56% had staff suffering from mental health issues associated with the pandemic and 43% of homes had had a Covid patient discharged into their care. A protective ring indeed, but to keep the virus in, not out and at its peak earlier this year, of the daily death total, 400 deaths were occurring in care homes.
Hancock’s denials were risible and in May it was exposed by SKWAWKBOX that it was official government policy to discharge Covid positive patients back into care homes. I checked the Government site today — it is STILL government policy to do this!
Therefore it should come as no surprise to see the government enacting this policy once again, flagged up by Channel 4 and also by ITV, that as we’re seeing cases of coronavirus rise in society once more, care homes are under pressure again to accept Covid positive patients back into their care from hospitals, possibly within days. Even more messed up is the fact the govt are now stopping hospitals testing patients and themselves in their own labs unless the funding has been approved by — her again — Dido Harding, otherwise the funding has to come out of their own overstretched budgets. It cannot be called NHS test and trace when the government have literally banned the NHS from doing any testing and tracing! Anyway…
The discharge policy remains unchanged, the unacceptable treatment of care homes was laid bare, the elderly, vulnerable patients that live in them were placed at an unacceptable level of risk, alongside the carers who work there. It was irresponsible to send sick patients back into care homes before, to do so again, knowing what happened before makes it intentional this time. They know people will die as a result of this, they’ve already watched it happen, so the government have clearly deemed this acceptable. A shortage of tests this time around thanks to Serco and Dido Harding’s test and trace failures mean cases may not even get picked up properly this time around either. To knowingly risk the harm of British citizens by their own government is genocidal insanity, but this is where we’re at in Tory Britain now. Deaths in care homes now, due to irresponsible discharge of Covid positive patients are a disaster waiting to happen & should be treated for what they are — a known consequence of government inaction, Sadiq Khan on LBC yesterday stating there have been no COBRA emergency meetings since May confirms this. A continued lack of preparation & no desire to change tack from the gross mishandling of this crisis earlier this year means we’re left with the inescapable conclusion that this government intends to let people die in care homes once again.
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