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HSE says care homes do not hide virus truth from families
THE HSE has said there has been absolutely no suggestion their nursing homes should not communicate with residents and families about the extent of Covid-19 outbreaks.
This comes after media reports yesterday revealed Nursing Homes Ireland, the representative body for private nursing homes, had sent a memo to its members stating they should not provide updates on the number of suspected or confirmed cases of coronavirus on the premises.
There are 575 nursing homes registered with the Health and Information Authority, 455 of which are private facilities and 120 are public and operated by the HSE. Speaking yesterday during a health briefing, Chief Operations Officer with the HSE Anne O’Connor said the only impact there has been on communication in their residences comes down to them being short-staffed.
‘The communication with families has been something that has been discussed and I know people have expressed concerns around communication,’ she said. ‘What we have found in some of the units is that our staffing has been reduced significantly. We have a much smaller number of staff available to care for patients and we haven’t had as much opportunity to talk to people, to engage, as we might have in a non-Covid world purely because of the work demands in particular units.
‘But there has been absolutely no suggestion that we wouldn’t communicate. It has just been around the capacity of staff at a given point in time to be able to talk to people on phones etc.’
She added that communication is important in long-stay units where people aren’t seeing family members as much.
Over the weekend, the Business Post revealed the representative body for private nursing homes, NHI, sent its members a memo which stated that, on the advice of the National Public Health Emergency Team, nursing homes should not provide updates relating to the number of suspected or confirmed cases in a residence.
However, this was contradicted by the NPHET who told the paper that it did not give any such advice or instruction to nursing homes.
Another communication the NHI sent to members over the weekend recognised the importance of updating all residents’ representatives and nominated persons, including those who have not been tested positive for Covid-19, but stopped short of making specific reference to communicating the extent or severity of an outbreak.
According to the latest data from the Health Protection Surveillance
Centre, nursing homes account for over 30% of all clusters of Covid-19 in the country.
Figures released on Friday show that, so far, there have been 4,919 infections associated with nursing homes, resulting in 867 deaths.
On Saturday, Health Minister Simon Harris announced the establishment of a Covid-19 Nursing Home Expert Panel, which will examine national and international measures in response to the virus as well as emerging best practices.
The panel is set to report to Minister Harris by the end of June this year. It will be chaired by the Principal of the College of Health and Agricultural Sciences at UCD, Professor Cecily Kelleher.
Speaking to the Irish Daily Mail, patient advocate and director of the Irish Patients’ Association, Stephen McMahon, said the panel should review all communication between NPHET and nursing home operators, including the HSE.
‘They should really be in a position to make a recommendation as to whether an independent inquiry is needed or not into what has happened in the nursing homes, considering that the residential sector really took the brunt of the outbreak,’ he said.
‘We have a much smaller number of staff available’