Relatives keeping elderly in check to avoid coronavirus infection
CARING FOR elderly family members during the COVID19 outbreak is proving a challenge as it demands constant reminders to wash hands and physical assistance at a time when social distancing is being touted.
The elderly fall into the high-risk group for persons most likely to have adverse outcomes if they contract the virus. Four of the seven persons who have died from the virus on local shores were over the age of 50. Two were between 40 and 49 and one under nine years old.
Seventy-three-year-old Spanish Town, St Catherine, resident Inez Morton told The Gleaner that she is “hell scared” of contracting COVID-19 and has been doing all she can to stay clean.
Morton, who lives with her 24-year-old granddaughter, said she needs no reminder to wash her hands.
“I am always a clean person, so washing hands is natural to me. I can’t fake it,” she said with a healthy laugh.
“Me a old lady now. I can’t afford to catch this, so I stay in every day. Not even doorway me go because the prime minister say fe tan a me yard,” she continued.
Morton’s granddaughter is employed at a health centre in Old Harbour in the parish, which has racked up the most cases locally and was put under a lockdown to contain the spread of the virus.
ALWAYS WORRIED
She told The Gleaner that she is always worried that she could bring home the virus when returning home from work.
“It is very hard. I have to deal with people at the clinic and still come home to assist her, and even though I wear a mask and gloves, there is this lingering feeling that something could go wrong,” said the granddaughter, who did not wish to be named.
Denise Francis, who took her 65-year-old mother to the Windward Road Health Centre yesterday, has double duties at home, where her two children awaited their return.
She said she takes care of her mother and the children by employing a new routine.
“It is really challenging, especially when I need to leave the house. I have to ask someone to watch the kids, and then you really don’t know who you gonna get, so it’s that level of uncertainty that spooks me the most,” she told The Gleaner.
Francis added that she also has to remind the children to wash their hands frequently, one of the recommended measures to limit the spread of the deadly virus.
Trevor Spencer, who drove his father’s 80-year-old caregiver, Hortense Lugg, to the same health facility for a check-up, noted that he now recognises the need to be constantly reminding them to wash hands.
“I find that because they are elderly, they are not remembering as much as we would like, so we try to encourage them to make sure this is done,” he said. “My father is blind, but she, despite her age, is always on the go, so a constant reminder is needed for them both. Otherwise, so far, we’re taking all precautions, wiping down the place with bleach and disinfectant to make sure we all stay free of this COVID-19.”
Ralston Livingston, 68, said he does not always remember to do simple things, but is often reminded by his son, adding that this is why “old people must not live alone”.
In Europe, over 95 per cent of deaths due to COVID-19 have occurred in people older than 60 years.
Researchers note that the coronavirus kills an estimated 13.4 per cent of patients 80 and older, compared to 1.25 per cent of those in their 50s and 0.3 per cent of those in their 40s.