Covid Care Home Hell: Did Government Actions Lead to the Most Vulnerable People in Society Dying? Under the banner of protecting the most vulnerable people from Covid-19, governments across the globe have imposed fascist-style restrictions. Yet as more evidence is unearthed about how authorities have handled Covid-19, particularly in relation to care homes, the notion that authorities helped to protect the most vulnerable people in society is laughable in many respects.
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Amnesty International has just released a new report that argues that the UK government took decisions during the pandemic that violated the human rights of people in English care homes. The report is titled: As If Expendable: The UK Government’s Failure to Protect Old People in Care Homes During the Covid-19 Pandemic. The report begins by detailing that between the 2nd of March and the 12th of June, 2020, over 18,000 people in English care homes died with Covid-19, which was close to 40% of all Covid-related deaths in England during those months. The report states that “the UK government, national agencies, and local-level bodies have taken decisions and adopted policies during the COVID-19 pandemic that have directly violated the human rights of older residents of care homes in England.”
Since the start of pandemic, the serious threat posed by Covid-19 to elderly people with underlying health problems was clear, argues the report, yet the UK government “failed to take measures promptly and adequately to protect care homes.” One of the central criticisms was directed at decisions taken by English authorities at the national and local level in relation to Covid-19 patients being transferred into care homes. Authorities allowed elderly people who had Covid-19, or potentially had Covid-19, to be discharged from hospital and transferred into care homes, under the advice that these people were not required to test negative for Covid-19 for this transfer to take place. Furthermore, care homes managers told interviewers that they were pressured in numerous ways to accept elderly people who had Covid-19, or who had not been tested for the virus yet.
These policies, decisions and indecisions, were likely significant factors in Covid-19 spreading rapidly through care homes, resulting in thousands of the most vulnerable people in society dying. This all took place whilst the government was imposing restrictions on wider society in the name of protecting the most vulnerable people in society. How this Covid care home hell was allowed to unfold needs to be seriously investigated.
The issue of moving elderly people who were infected with Covid-19 into care homes was not just a problem in England however. In Scotland, it has been reported that at least five Scottish health boards transferred patients into care homes after those patients had tested positive for Covid-19. A report by Public Health Scotland into this issue was meant to be published last month, but it has been delayed. Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish First Minister, has previously sidestepped questions over whether she personally knew about cases where infected people were transferred into care homes by urging critics that they should wait for the report.
Sources:
BBC News (4 October, 2020) Covid: Care homes policies violated human rights, says Amnesty https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-54408723
Amnesty International. As If Expendable: The UK Government’s Failure to Protect Old People in Care Homes During the Covid-19 Pandemic https://www.amnesty.org.uk/files/2020-10/Care%20Homes%20Report.pdf
Peter Swindon (16 Aug. 2020) Hospitals in five Scottish health boards sent patients into care homes after they had tested positive for Covid-19, The Sunday Post - https://www.sundaypost.com/fp/hospitals-sent-patients-into-care-homes-after-they-had-tested-positive-for-covid-19/
Tom Gordon (28 Sep. 2020) Report into transfer of Covid infected patients into care homes is delayed, The Herald https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/18754444.report-transfer-infected-patients-scottish-care-homes-delayed/
Kim Barker and Amy Julia Harris (24 April, 2020) ‘Playing Russian Roulette’: Nursing Homes Told to Take the Infected, New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/24/us/nursing-homes-coronavirus.html
