The UK’s response to coronavirus is like fighting blindfold. Without testing, vulnerable people remain at extreme risk
Wed 22 Apr 2020 05.00 EDT
Last modified on Wed 22 Apr 2020 06.38 EDT
“On Friday, another resident of my unit returned from hospital having recovered from coronavirus symptoms. Since his return I have discovered two residents of my unit have died in the care home, but I don’t know the cause,” writes David (not his real name). “There are two other residents in our unit who have been hospitalised with a high temperature and a cough but they have not been tested.”
For the past week, David has emailed me from inside one of Britain’s coronavirus-struck care homes. As the government is accused of treating social care as an “afterthought” and one prominent member of the media talks of care home “inmates”, you won’t hear much from people like David – but he is one of the thousands of disabled and older care home residents across the country who are locked inside a national crisis.
David is not your stereotypical care home user. He’s only in his 40s, but progressive multiple sclerosis (MS) means he’s been in residential care for the past three years. The left side of his body and his right leg don’t move as he instructs them to, but as he puts it, “my eyes, ears and brain” work fine.
There are around 150 residents in the home. Nowadays, only staff go in and out. Residents have been told they must stay in their rooms and not interact with one another. David hasn’t seen his wife or two children in four weeks; Facebook and Zoom are now his only windows to the outside.
In recent weeks, as the pandemic has spread through council and privately run care homes, David has watched the crisis unfold from his wheelchair. It is estimated that deaths in care homes in England and Wales have more than quadrupled in a week.
David’s disability means he can barely talk but he wants to speak out. He types to me painstakingly with one finger, emailing a national newspaper in the hope that someone will hear him. “It’s terrifying,” he writes. “I can see things happening but I can’t change it.”
He says that he has been sending email after email to the care home management asking for information on possible Covid-19 cases in the residence but gets no reply. Meanwhile, low-paid care staff are trying their best as they work around the clock, but mistakes are made daily. “A carer came in my room to get me my toothbrush,” David tells me. “He gloved up then realised that there were no towels so he left the room, got a towel and returned with the same gloves … it’s not easy to explain infection control with a glare.”
A leaked letter from the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (Adass) told of a catalogue of national safety errors: from “shambolic” delivery of protective equipment to care homes, to insufficient testing of care staff and residents. The health secretary, Matt Hancock, has since announced a new social care strategy including making testing available for all care staff and residents, but there is no deadline. David worries it’s too little too late. “I fear that the damage was done weeks ago and a lot of us are unknowingly incubating the coronavirus.”
The UK’s pandemic response in care homes is comparable to fighting blindfolded: there is no way of combating the virus if we don’t know how widespread and severe it is. People who die of suspected coronavirus outside hospital are not immediately included in official death toll lists; there is a two-week delay in collecting data from care homes. Meanwhile the national lack of testing makes it impossible to know which homes and residents are carrying the virus. Without an accurate picture of how coronavirus is affecting care homes, ministers are less able to make robust plans to tackle it: from the right PPE for staff to proper funding for safe levels of care.
In the coming days, it would be easy to forget about David. Disabled and older people in care homes are on the edge of society, literally shut away out of sight and too often dismissed in times of pandemics as already “sick” or “old”. But in a public health crisis, it is those who are farthest from the public eye who require the most attention. The very people who are most vulnerable are being overlooked.
• Frances Ryan is a Guardian columnist
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/22/care-home-crisis-coronavirus-testing-risk
