Heartbroken families continue to seek answers from nursing homes over the death of loved ones
Vulnerable deserve to be treated with compassion at such a hard time, but they’re not even getting that, writes Catherine Fegan
ANNA LAUGHLIN (94) was a familiar sight as she zipped along the hallways of The Rock nursing unit in Ballyshannon in her wheelchair.
She had only been a resident for two years, after her health began to fail and several underlying conditions meant she needed closer care.
The mother-of-four got a new lease of life after making The Rock her new home and although she was finding it harder to move around unaided, she was doing well as the first few months of the year came and went.
She was happy and settled. The many staff who cared for her enjoyed her quick wit and humour and fellow residents grew fond of her company as she immersed herself in activities.
She spent her days buzzing the hallways and cheering up bed-bound friends. Last month that all changed. It was Good Friday when the Irish Red Cross entered the place Anna called home and evacuated her and 17 other residents.
The mercy mission, as it has been described locally, had been carefully planned in advance by the HSE. Alarm bells had started to ring at the facility after a resident died and several staff fell ill with suspected Covid-19. Furthermore, there were concerns about the ability to control a Covid-19 outbreak in such an old building.
So, in a desperate bid to avert disaster, the Red Cross swooped in, assisted by the Civil Defence, shepherding Anna and her fellow residents safely away in ambulances.
“The residents had all been told what was going to be happening so it was a case of just gently getting them,” Valerie McGrath, assistant area director of units at the Donegal branch of the Irish Red Cross, told the Irish Independent.
“We were in full PPE and those residents who could wear masks had them on.
“We took two patients at a time, with whatever belongings they had, in each of our three ambulances. We would drop them off, clean down, because it was all under suspected Covid, and then pick up another patient. It was a big task that the HSE couldn’t have done on its own.”
Earlier that day, in her house a few hundred metres away, Anna’s daughter Mary Egan had answered a phonecall from staff at the Rock.
“I was told mammy was being taken to Stranorlar for her own safety,” she said.
“When and where she got Covid-19 I still don’t know. All I know is that I last saw her on March 14 and she died from the virus on April 21.”
This week it emerged that the HSE-run Rock Nursing
Unit had experienced 10 Covid-19 deaths at a facility that has a maximum occupancy of 22, the equivalent of 45pc of its capacity. The figures came from a confidential HSE report, published by the ‘Irish Times’, detailing longterm care settings around the country and the Covid-19 deaths recorded in each one.
Some operators have disputed the figures in the report, saying they are not accurate.
Sinn Féin TD Pearse Doherty referred to The Rock and the fact that residents had been transferred into another setting which, he claimed at the time, was Covid-free.
Furthermore, Doherty hit out at the “blame game” between the HSE and HIQA, who said at the Oireachtas Covid committee on Tuesday that they did not have the figures for the deaths in nursing homes at the time. However, it appears that the figures had already been collated in a report.
Likewise, issues regarding transparency have been raised by a number of TDs following the release, by the Department of Health, of more than 400 pages of correspondence from Nursing Homes Ireland (NHI) and the Government just hours before the committee was due to start.
In this correspondence it was clearly noted that NHI had raised issues over access to PPE and asked for detailed guidance for the sector on how to deal with the outbreak.
As more and more information leaked out this week, via the Covid-19 Committee, documents dumped online by the Department of Health and statistics uncovered by journalists, the families of those who died were left reeling.
“This week has been incredibly upsetting,” said Sarah Bollard, who lost her father to Covid-19 in a Co Kildare nursing home.
Sarah’s father, Charlie (71), passed away from Covid-19 on April 12 after he became ill and was transferred to Connolly Hospital. The Bollard family claim they had been asking for the nursing home to test him in the days before his transfer.
“What we wanted was for him to be tested but it just wasn’t being done,” said Sarah.
“He was sent to Connolly, where he tested positive and that’s where he died.”
Ms Bollard has been following developments on nursing homes since and found the interaction at the Dáil committee hearing this week particularly frustrating.
“We are being drip-fed information,” she said.
“Even the politicians can’t get answers. We have been trying to get answers from everywhere, from Hiqa, from the nursing home, from the HSE.
“We are just sent from one to the other with no hope of getting to the facts.
“By the time this is all over it will be too little, too late for us and for our dad. But our dad mattered and we will keep being his voice in all of this.”
Many families who have spoken to the Irish Independent about nursing homes have expressed frustration over communication during the pandemic.
The vast majority of care facilities cite confidentiality as a reason not to divulge numbers on deaths and infections.
However, given the sheer scale of the crisis in these settings, and the public interest issues at play, many families feel they, and the public, have a right to know.
In late March, Tara Winthrop Private nursing home in Swords, Co Dublin, first came to the attention of this newspaper when it emerged there was a Covid-19 outbreak at the facility.
The facility declined to reveal how many had died. Later, on April 22, when a figure of 20 was put to a PR expert hired
by the facility, he said the numbers were “significantly lower”. This week it was confirmed there have been 29 deaths there.
Similarly, Ryevale Nursing home, where this week it emerged there have been 35 Covid-19 deaths, was contacted by the Irish Independent almost a month ago.
Several emails were sent to the owner of the facilities on foot of reports that there was a major outbreak at the facility.
No reply was forthcoming. On Wednesday, when contact was made again, the owner said previous correspondence had been directed to spam.
Again, queries about issues concerning staff levels and PPE went unanswered.
Ryevale is a member of Nursing Homes Ireland (NHI), the body that represents the private and voluntary nursing home sector. In correspondence seen by the Irish Independent, NHI this week wrote to members stating that a broadcast journalist had been making “unsolicited” contact with nursing home staff and families of residents who had died from Covid-19. NHI alleged that the journalist was looking for “negative stories”.
One operator, who passed the email on, said it demonstrated the “paranoia” in the private nursing home sector.
“It’s a case of ‘tell no-one anything, they are all out to get us,’” he said.
After the publication of numbers relating to deaths in each facility this week, the HSE cautioned against pitting homes against each other by way of analysis.
A spokesperson said: “Residential settings differ greatly, meeting a wide variety of care needs. Some settings provide care to those with very complex needs, while others may have few residents requiring such medical care.”
This week, Mary Egan said she was relieved when The Rock was named publicly. “I have been sitting here for months wondering why it hadn’t been mentioned,” she said.
“When everything was going on with mammy we couldn’t get talking to anyone face-toface and we still don’t know what really happened.
“Even now, I think we will probably never get answers to the questions we have. I’m in my seventies, so I am considered an older person myself and I just feel that we don’t matter.”
Mary last saw her mother alive on March 14. Covid-19 visitor restrictions were being imposed and The Rock was going into lockdown.
“I told mammy I loved her, like I always do,” she said.
“We sat and had a chat and I told her there were no Masses because the Pope had closed all the churches.
“She asked me why and I said there was a bad flu going about. I’ve been thinking about how hard she worked all her life, in the kitchens at the local hospital, raising a family. She was a hard-working woman, loved by her children and many grandchildren.”
Anna Laughlin and the 800plus other souls who died in nursing homes, led full and meaningful lives.
Transparency and accountability, both in the private and public sector, from those who purport to have their best interests at heart, would give their untimely deaths meaning as well.