Sue care home chiefs profiting from cruelty

ACOUPLE of years ago I wrote on this page that while I was glad not to have got Covid and that none of my family had died from it, the blessing I was most grateful for during the pandemic was that I did not have an elderly loved one in a care home. The sheer cruelty of the isolation was unimaginable, with people denied access, elderly folk dying alone with no family at the bedside, while others were hugely hurt and bewildered because suddenly nobody was visiting any more and they were too confused by dementia to understand why.

Some relatives were prevented by the home owners, who often acted more like jailers than carers, from taking their loved ones out of care to look after them themselves for the duration.

IT WAS all deeply horrible and, unbelievably, as was reported in this newspaper on Monday it is still going on in some homes and at last, at long, long last, the House of Commons is to debate a matter that should have been a top item on its agenda in the pandemic. No home should have the right to place a blanket ban on visits. It can insist that both visitor and visited are tested and negative, it can insist on protective clothing, it can limit numbers, it can demand proof of vaccination, it can allow only nominated visitors but preventing visits altogether is too brutal to be classed as legal and should not have happened, even at the height of the pandemic.

I am not of the persuasion that legislation is always the answer but on this matter, I think government must move quickly, given the long delay there has already been, and oblige those care home owners who are still imposing such bans to act like human beings instead of powercrazed monsters. Of course it might help to punch them in their profits so perhaps the ultimate answer is for those denied access to sue on behalf of the confused elderly.