The care home outrage that will shame Ministers
First they were ravaged by are draconian Covid. being Now torn visiting apart families rules. by After revealing their plight last week, we received a deluge of letters from readers who feel as if their loved ones have been imprisoned. Their harrowing stories should shame Ministers
TWELVE years ago, Ian Smith made a vow, one that so many make, to his wife, Sylvia – to have and hold her, in sickness and in health, from that day forward. And when, two years ago, at the age of just 66, she inexplicably developed an aggressive, degenerative brain illness, he was good to his word. Sylvia, who enjoyed travelling round the country with Ian to watch live music and ‘was a bit of an expert’ at making wedding cakes, rapidly became wheelchair-bound, unable to walk, talk beyond the odd word, feed, dress or wash herself.
After struggling on for much of 2018, with her condition rapidly worsening, Ian, 67, was finally unable to cope alone. But after finding her a place at a nursing home in nearby Market Harborough, Leicestershire, he was by her side for up to six hours a day, every day, bringing her meals and staying with her until he tucked her into bed at night.
This all came to a sudden halt, however, on March 24, when the country went into lockdown. The care home closed its doors to all visitors – and never reopened, barring the odd 30-minute slot, once a week.
In fact, since the pandemic struck, Ian has been able to see Sylvia for less than three hours in total, at a distance of two metres – the last time, on August 21, their wedding anniversary. He was ‘allowed’ to stand beside his wife for just a few moments, while a member of staff took a picture.
‘I put my arm around her, although I knew I shouldn’t,’ says the retired steelworker, from Corby, Northamptonshire. ‘I know she’s got worse, since I’ve not been there. She used to smile and now I don’t know if she recognises me.’
SPEAKING to Ian you get a sense that, like many in such trying circumstances, he’s kept it together over the past couple of years by throwing himself into caring for his wife – who became so unwell, so quickly, and who he so clearly adores. He says: ‘I just didn’t want her to ever feel alone, or scared.’ No one knows what caused Sylvia’s illness, corticoSocial basal degeneration, which leads to progressive brain damage. Most patients don’t live more than eight years from onset.
Needless to say, Ian has been left broken by the separation.
‘She’s still beautiful to me,’ he says. ‘I just want to be able to sit with my wife, and be her husband.
‘When we married, I promised I’d look after her in sickness and in health. But now I can’t. She took a chance on me, and I just want to show her she made the right choice – I’m terrified she thinks I’ve given up on her. I just don’t know how long she’ll last like this. I don’t come into contact with anyone else, really, so I don’t see why I’m more a risk than a member of staff.
‘I’d be tested every single day if I had to, but nothing I say makes a difference. Instead, we are both suffering, every day.’
Sadly, Ian is also far from alone in his plight. Last week, I wrote about the anguish of families who’ve been barred by care homes from being with their loved ones – in many cases for six months.
While restrictions have eased across the country, huge numbers of these vital facilities are still in lockdown, refusing or drastically limiting visits. And, it seems there is no end in sight. Dementia charity
John’s Campaign has launched a legal challenge, in a bid to force the Government to amend guidance that has led to this nightmarish situation. The problem, it says, is that care homes have enforced blanket lockdown rules, strictly limiting visits, if they’re permitted at all, and prohibiting physical contact.
But in their rush to protect vulnerable, elderly residents, managers have neglected one of the most vital parts of their residents’ health: everyday interactions with those who care for them most.
In response to our article, we received scores of letters and emails from readers who said they too had been forcibly separated from the most important people in their lives – husbands and wives, parents and children, torn apart. Just a few of them, we reprint on these pages – their pain, like Ian’s, is palpable. And many also describe a shocking decline in their health, or even death of their relative in care. The figures back this up – there has been a 52 per cent spike in deaths from dementia, unrelated to Covid-19, since lockdown began.
The John’s Campaign lawyers will argue that care homes are breaking human rights laws.
The Department for Health and Care claims ‘our first priority is to prevent infections’ and that ‘visiting policies should be tailored by the individual care home’.
The new guidance states that people living in care homes should be allowed a ‘single constant visitor’ and while touching is not prohibited, it should be ‘kept to a minimum’. It suggests ‘if a visitor is making close personal contact with a resident they may need to wear PPE beyond a face covering’. But it also recognises allowances should be made if the ‘resident’ has ‘difficulty in accepting face coverings’.
Clearly, there is room for interpretation. But it seems, by erring on the side of caution, many homes have interpreted this advice in the most draconian way.
There is also the matter of ‘Covidfree status’ – homes are completely locking down for 28 days and, some claim, locking residents in their rooms for this period as soon as there is one diagnosis. But how long will this go on? And how many more will die from the well-known ill effects that social isolation has on those with dementia?
In April, after distressing stories emerged of patients – some of them children – dying alone in hospital, their families barred from being with them due to corona restrictions, Secretary of State for Health Matt Hancock pledged to allow families to be together, in person, ‘wherever possible’.
Yet, in this matter he seems to have remained neutral. He says he has ‘sympathy’, but has ‘given decision-making to the local area and to the homes themselves’.
And, without clear leadership, thousands of families continue to suffer, with no one to turn to. Perhaps, then, reading their words in the letters that follow will have a salutary effect on the Ministers and other officials who are failing to act amid this growing crisis...