Our moral duty to the most vulnerable

WHAT moral obligation does society owe to its most vulnerable elderly citizens as they move into their declining years?

That question has taken on sharp focus in recent days, as the Mail has revealed the tragedy unfolding in nursing homes around the country. Hundreds ( probably thousands) of residents have died since coronavirus struck – many spending their final hours confused and alone. Yet the bleak truth is, no one in authority is giving this everyday carnage the attention it deserves.

Their passing goes unrecorded in daily bulletins and almost certainly significantly under-reported in the supposedly more accurate fatality numbers supplied by the Office for National Statistics.

ONS figures put care home deaths at under 300 up to April 3. Care England says its sources suggest the toll is at least 1,000. The Alzheimer’s Society estimates 2,500. The Independent Care Group says it could even be as high as 4,000.

As former pensions minister Ros Altmann said yesterday, elderly residents are being abandoned ‘like lambs to the slaughter’.

Meanwhile, their carers struggle to acquire the protective equipment they need and Covid testing is shamefully rare.

Until yesterday, their plight had hardly been raised in the daily Downing Street briefings, so fixed have ministers been on reinforcing lockdown measures and protecting the NHS.

Of course, life expectancy within nursing homes is limited even without coronavirus. The average is around two years, with more than a quarter dying within a year.

But the fact they are approaching the end of their lives should not be an excuse for shrugging our shoulders and leaving them to their fate. They have raised families, paid taxes and contributed through their lives to their community. They have earned our respect – and deserve our protection.

Today, the Mail calls for the following action to address this catastrophe. Testing for all nursing home residents and staff with symptoms; publication of a national daily death toll; a proper supply of PPE for carers (on which VAT should be scrapped); and a dedicated minister for social care within the Department of Health. This paper appreciates that the Government is straining every sinew to fight this virus and there are constant demands on resources from every conceivable quarter. But in a civilised society, defending the most vulnerable is an overriding moral duty.

Every care home resident is somebody’s mother, father, grandparent or lifelong friend. Their lives matter.