INHUMANE!
Ruthie Henshall hits out at Covid care home rules as mother she wasn’t allowed to visit for a year dies at 87
SHE has campaigned passionately for better care home visiting rights during the pandemic as she watched her mother’s health deteriorate without visits from her family.
And yesterday Ruthie Henshall branded the Government ‘ utterly inhumane’ as she announced the heartbreaking news of her mother’s death.
The West End actress went almost a year without being able to visit her dementia- suffering mother Gloria, 87, in her Suffolk care home.
The 54-year- old said her sister Susan was ‘angry and devastated’ at only being able to see her mother indoors twice since the pandemic began.
‘My beautiful mummy Gloria passed away very peacefully early this morning,’ Miss Henshall tweeted yesterday. ‘I managed to care for her for a few short weeks. ‘It was my honour and my privilege. If the Government had made their guidance law my sisters would have seen her more than a couple of times before losing her.’
In March Miss Henshall was able to be in the same room as her mother and hold her hand for the first time in a year. She said of the moment: ‘It will remain one of the most beautiful days of my life. Because I had fought so hard for that moment and it meant so much. It was incredibly moving.
‘It took Mum about ten minutes to realise who I was but, when I put my arms around her, she kept moaning with delight, just with the touch.
‘I watched the penny drop with her and, once the confusion had cleared, she wouldn’t stop looking at me. Her eyes were bright, and the joy in her was palpable.’
When guidelines allowed care home residents one ‘named visitor’, Gloria’s care home, Spring Lodge, also allowed a second visitor as long as they provided ‘essential care’, meaning Miss Henshall and her sister Abigail could visit their mother inside. But Susan was unable to visit inside. ‘My sister Susan is angry and devastated that she only got two indoor visits before my mother died,’ Miss Henshall tweeted.
‘This was completely and totally unnecessary. Utterly inhumane to these beautiful residents who are not really living much of a life.’
Miss Henshall claimed some care home providers were ‘allowing an abuse of residents’ human rights to meaningful contact with their loved ones’ because the guidance to allow a named visitor was not law, something she branded ‘a crime being committed’.
She continued: ‘I was Gloria’s essential care giver for her last weeks. I read to her, sang to her, cuddled her, fed her, massaged her hands and feet and told her I loved her at least 20 times a visit.
‘Each time I hugged her she moaned with delight. All she had left was touch. She couldn’t walk, talk or eat solid food.
‘Just one essential care giver by law to every resident would give unlimited joy, love and peace of mind and take a huge strain off the brilliant carers who get paid mostly minimum wage.
‘Shame on every government official and care home provider that decided to ignore residents’ human rights and just batten down the hatches. You kept out love and hope.’ Miss Henshall is now a vociferous campaigner for the rights of care home residents and their loved ones.
Until March this year care home residents could not have visitors indoors. From early March, the Government said care home residents should be allowed one named visitor. This increased to two visitors last month, and will rise again to five from Monday.
‘Abuse of their human rights’