CARE HOME TIME BOMB
●MP’S fury as 13 die in week at one centre ●Lack of kit, testing & staff put OAPS at risk ●Child, 5, youngest UK death as toll hits 4,313
CARE homes are a ticking time bomb as the coronavirus sweeps through the UK’S social care system, it was warned last night.
The spread of Covid-19 through old people’s residential quarters will lead to widespread loss of life, it is claimed.
The care system is a breeding ground for the lethal virus because of lack of personal protective equipment.
Other factors are failure to test staff and agency workers moving between the homes of 500,000 elderly at-risk residents.
The grim warning came on a day when…
A CHILD aged five was among a record 708 UK Covid-19 deaths in 24 hours, bringing the total to 4,313.
FORTY
of the dead aged between 48 and 93 had no underlying health problems.
A TOTAL of 41,903 Brits have now tested positive.
A CONSPIRACY theory that the virus is spread by 5G mobile phone masts was branded “dangerous nonsense” by Cabinet minister Michael Gove.
THE worldwide number of sufferers has passed 1.1million, with at least 60,000 dead.
NEW YORK STATE recorded 630 deaths while Spain had another 809 amid signs the infection rate there is slowing.
Last night Labour MP Peter Kyle said he warned Prime Minister Johnson ELEVEN DAYS ago that action had to be taken to avert carnage in care homes.
Mr Kyle said: “When it comes to social care the system is delivering infection into care homes and spreading it between care homes.
“Government policy is infecting care homes and leading to loss of life.”
A suspected Covid-19 outbreak at a care home in Glasgow left 13 people dead in seven days. In Mr Kyle’s Hove constituency in East Sussex, the Oaklands Nursing Home has 15 of 20 residents with coronavirus symptoms. One, Giuseppe Casciello, 95, died on Monday.
He was one of only three residents who had been tested.
Relatives visited Mr Casciello every day for seven years but could not be at his bedside when he died. Mr Kyle said: “It’s cruelty beyond words to deny that family from being there, holding their hand and offering comfort, in their crucial last moments of someone’s life.”
Seven members of staff with symptoms self-isolated, one of whom ended up in intensive care.
At Oak Springs care home in
Wavertree, Liverpool, six residents have died from suspected coronavirus with a further 66 showing virus symptoms and 50 staff off with flu-like symptoms.
In Wales, Plas Pengwaith care home in Llanberis, Gwynedd, two residents have died this week
after they are suspected to have contracted coronavirus. Reg Amison, 86, died at Bradwell Hall Nursing Home in Stoke-on-trent a day after being diagnosed with Covid-19.
He had a cough and a temperature on March 24 before rallying then died in the nursing home on March 30.
Gwen Spencer, 81, who lived at
Berrington Court nursing home, in Kidderminster, died in hospital after testing positive for Covid-19.
The great-grandmother had bravely placed herself into self-isolation eight days earlier to prevent a mass outbreak at her care home.
On Friday it emerged that hospital chiefs in Brighton and Hove sent 98 care homes letters asking them to check if there are “do not resuscitate” orders on every patient.
Mr Kyle said he was deeply concerned about the use of DNR notices, adding: “I spoke to a care home just a couple of days ago who administered 16 out of these DNR notices to residents out of 26 in one day.”
Experts fear care homes are most at risk of the pandemic because residents live in close proximity to each other and agency staff move between different homes.
And most residents are in the at-risk age group of over 70, with many having pre-existing health problems. Mr Kyle said the Government had failed to provide adequate testing for care home workers and had not supplied adequate PPE.
His warning was echoed by Prof Martin Green, chief executive of Care England, who said care workers and vulnerable patients are being put in harm’s way as PPE shipments bound for Britain had been seized by customs officials in India and Turkey.
Prof Green has called on the government to roll out testing for residents and staff in care homes, while he said some schools are not recognising carers as key workers despite Government guidance.
Supermarkets are also denying care workers priority access.
Prof Green said: “Care homes are in the front line of this health emergency and unless they are supported properly, the NHS will not be able to cope.”