Creator of senior social affairs
BBCKovid inquiry will begin on Monday to investigate the impact of epidemic on care services for elderly and disabled people.
Condolences say that they have been waiting for this moment for years, the way Kovid has swept away as one of the most obvious and destructive failures of the epidemic through Covid Care Holmes.
Around 46,000 care house residents died in England and Wales between March 2020 and January 2022, many of them in the early weeks of epidemic.
The government says it supports the investigation and is committed to the learning lesson.
The major questions are that family and care staff want to answer, in March 2020 why it was decided to discharge some hospital patients rapidly in care homes.
They blame it, in part, in the early stages of epidemic to take the virus to care homes.
There are also questions about blankets “Some care by medical services does not revive the notice being placed on the residents of the house, and about visiting the policies that prevent families from watching their loved ones for months.
“It was a terrible, terrible time,” called Morin Lewis, manager of St. Ewes Lodge Care Home in Northeast London.
The house cares for 35 people, many of which have dementia.
When we came earlier this month, some residents were sitting on a table in the dining area, causing a bright colored collage of flower baskets. Staff and residents sit cheek by jwala while chatting with each other.
It was contrary to our first visit on 15 April 2020. Then, employees were prepared from head to toe in protective suits, their face covered by masks. The Britain was three weeks after the Britain shut down to stop the spread of spreading. Despite this, St. Ewes Lodge lost only six inhabitants in a week.
“It was the most difficult. And it was correct at the beginning of Kovid,” Morin remembers.
On 17 April 2020, the death toll reached its peak at the care home, in which 540 people died in England and Wales in a day.
St. Ewes Lodge closed in mid -March, but a resident who returned from the hospital developed navid symptoms. Those who were sitting on the same dining table, they quickly showed the same signs. They died within seven days of each other. The house later lost another resident for the virus.
At that time, Mareen explained how doctors and district nurses refused to come, how care houses struggled to get protective equipment (PPE) and had no useful guidance from the government.
“We were like a mini hospital,” he told BBC News, “Working with life care … what to do Gugling”.
This was an experience described by many other care home managers, who were abandoned by the government and NHS in the early months of the epidemic.
Looking back, Mareen says: “There were no protocols, there was no test and [the NHS] Originally got rid of any residents to take care of homes. He was normally discharged, but we were in an epidemic. ,
She wants why such decisions were made, and she wants to pay attention to the positions of responsibility.
He is angry with former Health and Social Care Secretary, Matt Hancock for his statement on 15 May 2020, that the government “threw a protective ring around the care houses”.
“Care had no safety ring for homes,” she says. “He needs to take accountability for his decisions made.”
Mr. Hancock is due to providing evidence within the next few days. This will be their seventh, and possible final appearance.
For Jean Edmson, the evidence hearing in the investigation in the coming weeks will be the most important yet.
Her father, Aldric died on 15 April 2020 with Kovid. The last time she saw her, when she was standing outside, she gave her a glimpse a few days ago through the window of her care. She was destroyed which she could not be on her side.
She says, “We were not allowed to say goodbye to her, to hold her hand,” she says. “This is an experience that will be with me forever. There is no grief.”
He also questions about the policy of discharging patients to take care of homes.
On 17 March 2020, NHS sent a letter to all hospitals, asking them to free the bed.
In the next four weeks, A Estimated 25,000 patients Care houses were discharged, many were not tested for Kovid.
On 2 April 2020, Government advised “negative [Covid] Testing is not required “before patients were discharged in care homes.
It was replaced on 15 April 2020, the day Aldric Edmson died. It has been said under the guidance of the new government that anyone will be discharged from the hospital to establish care.
Jean Edmson believes that the patients who had reached the house of their father’s care from the hospital could have seeds the virus there.
Other factors such as care homes and viruses in the common community would have played a role by employees running, but, she says, rapid discharge for patients’ houses was rapidly discharged for the care of homes.
“It was a careless decision,” she says. “The way my father and tens of thousands of other care were sacrificed to the residents of the house. It really gets me because I think it is a smack of age and disability discrimination.”
She has become an active member of the campaign group in five years since her father’s death, bereaved family for Kovid -19 Justice UK.
She says that the group wants to see the ban on the visit to the house of care that keeps the families separated for months.
They also want why some people do not try “regularly kept” orders for revival [DNARs]”, Without discussion with relatives or evaluation.
She says, “There was misuse of not trying to revive a policy. We need to understand how it came about.”
The difficulties faced by the careful workers in the investigation will also be investigated who supported the people in their homes.
This phase is expected to last for five weeks, not with the report until next year.
The memories of the epidemic remain painful for both Marines Lewis and Jean Edmson and both say that what they now want is the truth.
Jean says, “We need to understand that when we are the next epidemic and whatever happened, we can learn lessons to move forward and it should never happen again.”
Marines want more recognition of how care services survived without much help.
In the future, she says: “needs to invest more” and better plan for emergency situations.
