‘At the mercy of the system’: Sydney woman’s plea to get vaccine to vulnerable mother in hospital
At 5.30am on Wednesday 4 August, Kerry woke up to a vital call from her 90-year-old mother. Kerry tried to call back, but couldn’t make contact with her. She rang the ambulance.
“I rushed down to her home straight away,” Kerry tells Guardian Australia. The ambulance had already arrived. Her mother had a stroke, and wasn’t responsive.
“They put her in an ambulance to take her to hospital,” she says. “I begged them to let me go with her. But they couldn’t let me because of Covid restrictions.”
Kerry’s mother has since been in hospital for 30 days. During that time, she has been exposed to a nurse positive with the Delta variant of Covid and isolated for more than a week. She remains unable to access her second AstraZeneca dose, or see her daughter.
Watching the ambulance drive away that Wednesday morning, Kerry felt terrible.
“All I could do was wave her goodbye. That was the last time I saw my mother.”
‘I can’t see her. I can’t know she’s OK’
Kerry’s mother has her own house in the Middle Mountains region of the Blue Mountains in New South Wales, where she lived with support from a carer who visited twice a week. She suffers from early memory loss, and moves around independently with a walker.
At 9am the day Kerry’s mother was taken to hospital, she got a call. Her mother had been transferred to a stroke ward.
“It really felt like the beginning of a journey into hell,” she says. “Again, I was told I couldn’t see her. All I could do was ask every day to get a call from a doctor. At the first hospital, that never came.”
Five days later, on 9 August, Kerry’s mother was transferred to a second hospital. There, nurses were able to arrange phone calls between the mother and daughter.
“She sounded disoriented, confused and upset,” Kerry recalls of the brief phone conversations. “She seemed clearly in a state. What extent that was because of the stroke, or because she had no contact with family, I couldn’t tell.
“I still can’t see her. I don’t know if she’s OK. There’s no way to support my mother properly.”
‘She had been exposed to a nurse with Covid’
On 11 August, Kerry discovered her mother was being moved into a negative pressure isolation room.
“I was told the reason she was being moved into that environment was because she had been exposed at the first hospital to a nurse that had tested positive with the Delta strain of Covid.
“We hadn’t been able to communicate properly, and there she went into an isolated, sterile environment, with only nurses coming in as needed in full PPE.
“My mother is 90. She’s frail … You’re surrounded by strange people entering in strange clothes. You can’t see your family, you’re all alone.”
Kerry’s mother was in hospital isolation until 20 August.
Kerry fears the full impact of isolation on vulnerable elderly people “who are confused and disoriented in an environment like that”.
Kerry’s mother was returned from the isolation room to a ward of other elderly women, which Kerry says seems to have improved her mother’s mood. There, hospital staff have been trying to help Kerry’s mother regain independent functioning, getting her out of bed for mobility rehab.
“The staff are doing everything they can,” she says.
Following Kerry’s contact with Guardian Australia, she was told the staff would facilitate a visit to the hospital, to see her mother through a window.
‘The elderly were supposed to be a priority’
Kerry’s mother’s appointment to receive her second dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine came and went. Still in hospital, there is no means for Kerry’s mother to access her prebooked second jab.
Fearful her mother could again be exposed to the virus while at hospital, Kerry inquired across hospital and GP networks as to how she can get a second Covid injection to her mother.
She was told by the hospital that “they can’t facilitate this as they don’t have the capacity to give injections”. Similarly, several GPs said getting a vaccine to her mother would “require quite a bit of organisation to get permission from the hospital”. The GP who administered her mother’s first Covid jab told Kerry they “will see what we can do”.
In the end, they confirmed “they couldn’t do anything”.
Kerry rang the government Covid helpline. There she was told the helpline was receiving “many calls about similar issues of vulnerable people housebound, and unable to get access to a vaccine or test”.
“I was told there is currently no government program that facilitates any of this access for vulnerable people, be they in hospital or at home and incapacitated,” Kerry says.
“She has been exposed to someone with Covid, at no fault of her own. And she is now unable to get her second jab. The elderly and the vulnerable were supposed to be a priority.”
When contacted by Guardian Australia, NSW Health directed responsibility to the federal government Department of Health.
A spokesperson for the Department of Health “recognises there may be some instances in which individuals are unable to leave their homes to receive their Covid-19 vaccinations”.
The spokesperson said “the government is working with primary health networks to assist with the development of local vaccination solutions for vulnerable populations”.
They also noted that “general practitioners may be able to arrange a home visit”. The spokesperson said this is supported by the introduction of a “flag-fall fee” to aid GPs and other medical practitioners who may conduct a “vaccine suitability assessment service” in residential aged care facilities, disability facilities or a place of residence.
For Kerry, the response from Covid helpline made her feel “like I ended up back where I started”.
“Who can I go to? Everywhere I called told me there is really nobody I can talk to or who can help.”
Kerry wrote an email to her local member of parliament. “They got back to me and said they’re escalating my concern to the CEO of a hospital network. That’s as far as I’ve been able to get.”
Kerry says she is now “totally stymied”.
“After a hospital exposed her to the virus, I can’t get the powers-that-be to come up with any solution to protect her while she remains there. We are being forced into a situation where she will have to be sent into an aged care facility. In her condition, I don’t know if my mother will ever be able to return home.
“I wouldn’t be able to see her go in to the facility. I wouldn’t be able to visit her. I can’t guarantee it is a safe environment. And I can’t get her protected in the supposed suit of armour she needs from vaccination.”
Kerry says her mother “seems totally forgotten”.
“It is the case for not only the elderly but all vulnerable people, in hospitals or incapacitated in their homes.
“There’s got to be some way of thinking outside the square for these people. We are swimming in AstraZeneca, and we can’t get it to them.”
‘I feel entirely powerless’
Kerry says all she wants is peace of mind.
“I just need to know she is safe. At least let me know she will be protected.”
Having a stroke and being sent to hospital “put my mother at the mercy of the health system”, Kerry says.
“There, she was exposed to the virus. And now she’s in a situation where she is due for her vaccination to protect her against the virus, and they can’t give it to her.”
Kerry fears the government’s mismanagement is “causing trauma for a lot of people”.
“It’s causing trauma for the people in a situation like my mother, who are stuck. It’s also causing trauma for people trying to manoeuvre through the situation from the outside.”
With no pathway to get vaccine protection against Covid to her elderly mother, who is hospitalised in an environment where she has previously been exposed to the virus, Kerry says: “I feel entirely powerless.”
“The system has forgotten about the vulnerable,” Kerry says. “It’s the system that has failed my mother.”