Care home ban is cruel to us all

ENOUGH already! The time’s come to fling wide the windows, utilise all existing expertise on preventing cross- infection, unlock doors and allow families to visit their beloved relatives in care homes. As one lady pining for a sight of the adored and confused mother she hasn’t glimpsed since March told me: “We are not visitors. We are family.”

Those still painfully separated from spouses, parents, siblings and friends are torn. They feel profound gratitude to the passionate professionals who have kept their dear ones alive, and anguish they’ve been prevented by the pandemic from participating in person.

Heartbreaking snippets of private information are seeping through. “I popped in every day to clean my mum’s teeth. She refused to open her mouth for anyone else,” said one. “My wife loved it when I combed her hair,” said another. “It wafted her straight back to our younger days. I worry that she thinks I’ve forgotten her. I worry her hair is tangled and she doesn’t look or feel like herself.” One said, heartbreakingly: “I waved to my dad through a smeary window and he mouthed: ‘ Why have you abandoned me?’”

Unable to see loved ones face to face, families are uneasy, unhappy and increasingly angry. They quite rightly fume at the thought that they are somehow less “safe” than nurses, cleaners and a host of others allowed access to care homes.

THEY insist that far from being harbingers of Covid- 19 germs they are more likely to be punctilious in their efforts not to infect loved ones. They are adamant that they are willing to self- isolate, sanitise from head to toe and do everything humanly possible to keep the virus at bay. How, they wonder, can they be seen as a risk when in reality their family members – especially those suffering dementia or Alzheimer’s – are depressed, discombobulated, and in the worst cases suicidal at being, as they see it, left in solitary confinement.

Much is being said about children needing to return to school for the sake of their mental health. Far too little is being made of the need for families to be reunited with elderly relatives. The mental equilibrium of all generations depends upon it. The GCSE and A- level algorithm failed. The algorithm – or whatever it is – responsible for a blanket ban on relatives entering residential homes has served its purpose and now it’s time to trust again.