Kathleen got Covid after her first dose of the vaccine. She died days later
When Covid struck at a nursing home, it led to a wave of deaths that the jab couldn’t stop
IT has been described as the worst Covid outbreak in an Irish nursing home.
At least 21 residents in a retirement home in Ballynoe, Co. Cork, have died, and almost all the 30 others remaining have Covid, as do the majority of the staff.
Since the outbreak began on January 8, Covid has ravaged Ballynoe Nursing Home at an alarming speed, with management struggling to find replacement staff. While many nursing homes have been hit by Covid in the postChristmas wave, few have been hit as hard as Ballynoe.
The CareChoice group, which owns Ballynoe and 11 other nursing homes, sent temporary staff by taxi from around the country as the crisis worsened this month. In the Dáil this week, Socialist Party TD, Mick Barry, called for an independent investigation.
The Taoiseach, Micheál Martin, said that he will talk to the health minister and said questions about the outbreak deserve ‘full and comprehensive answers’.
He said that the Health Information and Quality Authority carried out a risk inspection on February 11 and the Government is awaiting its publication before deciding what to do.
For the families who have lost loved ones, the last six weeks have been an ordeal, compounded by what the nursing home admits is a lapse in its usual high standards of communication.
Two families who spoke to the Irish Daily Mail say that Ballynoe was outstanding and run like a five-star hotel, until its nursing manager, Gráinne Henson, left in mid-November.
‘Gráinne was just fantastic, she treated all the residents like they were her family,’ said Phil Mangan, whose 94-year-old mother, Kathleen, died from Covid earlier this month.
‘Gráinne updated the families by email daily with news of Covid activities and photos of the very happy residents.’
As soon as Ms Henson left, the daily emails ended and it became a worrying time for families, especially as the Covid crisis developed in nursing homes after Christmas.
The problems at Ballynoe first arose in January. Ms Mangan still didn’t know anything was wrong on January 11, when she had a window visit with her mother and sang with her for 45 minutes.
‘She chose the songs, I’m not much of a singer but we had such a laugh,’ Ms Mangan recalls.
Unknown to her, four people in the nursing home already had Covid.
On the 22nd, her mother received her first Covid vaccine and was tested that week. On January 28, the results showed she had Covid.
According to Ms Mangan, it wasn’t until a week later, on February 4, that Ballynoe contacted the Mangan family to tell them that Kathleen had tested positive. The following day, Ms Mangan says, she made 20 calls to the nursing home seeking information. At 2.15pm, someone called back to say her mother had taken a bad turn. She went to Ballynoe to see her mother and staff supplied her with personal protective gear. ‘My mum was skeletal in the bed,’ she recalls. Ms Mangan asked for water and a straw for Kathleen, who drank a little.
The next day, February 6, after making numerous other unanswered calls, she got a call to say her mother was dying and that she should come immediately.
Ms Mangan and her brother arrived just before Kathleen died.
While the family were arranging the funeral that day, they needed a photo for the coffin of their mum and dad together. There was one by Kathleen’s bed in Ballynoe, so Ms Mangan rang and arranged to collect it.
She was handed a photo in an envelope but discovered it was of a different woman who had also died in Ballynoe.
‘The whole thing has been a systemic failure and a lack of communication. It’s very disappointing because until November, our experience there has been outstanding,’ she said.
She is joined in her criticism by Teresa Mulcahy, who lost her 82year-old mother, Margaret Kelleher, on Saturday, February 5.
‘Speaking out won’t do much for us but it does raise awareness of the issues,’ she now says of her loss. Ms Mulcahy now wants answers on ‘why the disease travelled through the building so rampantly, so that we can prevent it happening again elsewhere.’
Margaret had been tested for Covid on January 23, as the virus raged through the nursing home. The next day, the results came back positive.
‘Communication was extremely poor during the Covid outbreak, with requests to speak to staff and management via telephone and email often going unanswered,’ Ms Mulcahy says.
She says she wants CareChoice to put measures in place to ensure nursing home residents and families are kept updated in the event of repeat outbreaks.
In a detailed statement, Ballynoe said it offered its ‘sincere condolences to every family member and friend of our residents who have passed during this very significant Covid-19 outbreak in our Ballynoe nursing home, and we would like them to know that the thoughts of every CareChoice
‘Mum was sketetal in the bed’ ‘Hurt this has caused’
staff member are with them at this difficult time.’
It accepts that its communication to families has not been good enough and said it wants to apologise for this lapse. ‘We fully accept that at times our communications and interactions with the families was not of our usual standard and we would like to acknowledge the hurt this has caused and apologise to the families. We are contacting all of the families directly to discuss their concerns and issues.’
It said that it has been struggling to bring in staff from other nursing homes.
‘As soon as the outbreak began, staff from our other homes relocated to support and took on additional shifts to cover for colleagues who tested positive for Covid-19.
‘We also deployed additional management resources to support the home: a regional director of operations, directors of nursing, one assistant director of nursing, three clinical nurse managers, two human resources generalists and our regional manager with responsibility for housekeeping and catering. Our infection prevention and control nurse has also supported the home. Management have had the support and guidance of the GP in the home, public health and a consultant geriatrician,’ it said.