Care home deaths are embedded in my soul
But Sturgeon denies policy cost lives
NICOLA Sturgeon has claimed the human cost of Covid is “embedded in my soul” as she refused to accept her care home policies cost lives.
The First Minister was grilled at Holyrood by Labour leader Anas Sarwar on whether Scottish Government decisions were “unlawful, unreasonable, irrational and cost lives”.
That followed a ruling at the High Court in England that the UK Government’s similar policy on discharging untested patients into care homes was unlawful.
But Sturgeon replied: “No, I don’t accept that, although these are matters now, rightly and properly, that will be scrutinised by the public inquiry that is under way in Scotland and, of course, the parallel public inquiry that will take place into these matters UK-wide.”
At First Minister’s Questions, she told Sarwar guidance issued in Scotland was “broadly similar” to that in England but not “identical”.
The Care Inspectorate was told of 3774 Covidrelated deaths in care homes in the first 12 months of the pandemic.
The first of those was on March 16, 2020 but testing of hospital patients before they went into homes did not begin until April 21.
Sarwar said thenhealth secretary Jeane
Freeman “as late as April 17” was insisting there was “still not a strong case to test patients before discharge”.
Sarwar added: “By the time government changed guidance on April 21, nearly 3000 untested people and 75 known positive cases had already been transferred into Scotland’s care homes.
“Does the First Minister accept, in the words of the families affected and impacted, that this was a shameful, unforgiveable, criminal act that cost lives in Scotland?”
Sturgeon insisted Public Health Scotland had found “no clear statistical evidence” that linked hospital discharges to care home outbreaks.
Deputy First Minister John Swinney, told the Covid-19 Recovery Committee yesterday his government will “consider carefully” the court ruling.
He said Lady Poole’s Scottish Covid inquiry had an “explicit provision” to examine the situation in care homes.