Tag Archives: nursing homes

This afternoon.

Leinster House, Dublin 2

Meanwhile…

In Europe, an Italian government survey covering deaths in 10 percent of the nation’s care homes, suggested 45 percent of all deaths in that country could be in care homes.

And in Spain, leaked regional government data suggested 57 percent of the country’s death toll from March 8 to April 8 was from care homes.

According to Ireland’s chief medical officer, 54 percent of deaths up to April 11 had occurred in care homes.

Figures released by the French public health authority showed 45 percent of deaths took place in care homes.

In Belgium, health ministry figures showed 42 percent of COVID-19 deaths happened in care homes.

In North America, it’s reported at least 3,621 deaths in the U.S. have been linked to coronavirus outbreaks in nursing homes and long-term care facilities in the country. In Canada, deaths in nursing homes makes up almost half of the country’s coronavirus deaths.

Not A Medic writes:

There appear to be specific countries that have encountered the same issue concerning nursing homes. Was there a general policy worldwide that some countries opted out of?

Anyone?

Rollingnews

 

CEO of Nursing Homes Ireland Tadhg Daly and Fine Gael TD Fergus O’Dowd in the Dáil today at the Special Committee on Covid-19 Response

This afternoon.

At the Special Committee on Covid-19 Response in the Dáil.

Fine Gael TD Fergus O’Dowd raised with CEO of Nursing Homes Ireland Tadhg Daly the millions of euro in profits made by nursing homes; and how just 123 of 581 nursing homes were fully compliant with HIQA.

Initially, Mr O’Dowd went through a timeline of correspondence and contact between the NHI and the Department of Health during the coronavirus crisis, including a conference call Mr O’Dowd claimed took place with the Minister for Health Simon Harris on March 19.

Mr Daly said he didn’t believe such a conference call with the minister took place. He said the first meeting with the minister took place on March 30. Mr O’Dowd said his information is that the conference call with the minister did take place on March 19.

Mr O’Dowd told the committee that the correspondence shows that “nobody from NPHET asked Nursing Home Ireland not to tell families where the cases or clusters were”, a claim reported on the front page of the Business Post at the weekend.

The Fine Gael TD said:

“The key point I’m making to you is your statement that ‘key State organisations left the nursing home sector and its residents isolated’ is patently and obviously untrue.”

He added:

“You’ve 12 directors, all businessmen and businesswomen. I looked at their accounts and there’s some very wealthy companies represented among your directors who are very fine people in every respect. €23.3million was a profit in the last accounting year for eight of those directors and for the other directors, I can’t get the accounts because they’re a part of other companies.

“So would it be fair to say that the nursing home sector is a privately funded organisation and has a lot of money for buying things like PPE for doing test, for paying for staff accommodation, for paying for extra staff in this crisis?”

Mr Daly said: “Yes, absolutely…”

Asked later what funds NHI spend additionally to the normal nursing homes funds to get PPE, to pay for testing and extra staff, Mr Daly said:

“It runs into the millions and I can get those figures for you.”

Mr O’Dowd argued:

“You were recompensed… and I’m not saying that’s not a bad thing. You got the money back that you spent. That’s the point I’m making. To say that you were left isolated is not a fact.”

He added:

“In the last public report on your nursing homes, how many of them were compliant fully with HIQA regulations? Of the 581 homes, how many were fully compliant?”

Mr Daly said he didn’t know.

Mr O’Dowd said:

“Well I have…the fact is that 123 only, of the 581 nursing homes, public, private, not-for-profit, were fully compliant. And of those, governance and management, there was a failure under that governance and management regulation of 32%. Residents rights failure of 23% non-compliance. Risk management 22%. And infection control 18%.”

At the end of his contribution, Mr O’Dowd referenced an article in The Guardian about Hong Kong, saying:

“The point is you are making the point that the State, or the HSE or the minister or department didn’t assist you: I believe that you did and I believe you could have done a lot more for yourself and you didn’t do that.

“…. I am going to say this as loud as I can. And it is exceptionally clear and it is something that I say all my life. That the care of old people, older people in nursing homes is not acceptable. That the nursing home private sector is not compliant in the main, right across. That they are very wealthy companies who complain that the taxpayer isn’t doing enough for them.

“I want to say exceptionally clearly  that we need a total change in the way the care of older people is looked at….We’ve to stop this game of blaming everybody and to accept the facts: the facts are that we’re not doing enough. We’ve never done enough and unless things change now, we’re going to go down the same road…

“…In Hong Kong, there is no death certificate in all of Hong Kong for one person from a nursing home who had Covid-19 because nobody died there. Nobody died there. And I just get so angry at this.

“And I think, sorry Mr Chairman, I’ve 14 seconds left. Let me say that I think that we need to move forward together but we must establish the facts and the truth is the truth and the truth will out. We have to change absolutely, radically, everything to do with older people.”

Watch live here

Previously: Meanwhile In The Dáil

UPDATE:

UPDATE:

This morning.

From 11am.

The Special Committee on Covid-19 Response will meet in the Dáil chamber.

They will discuss the Government’s response to Covid-19 in nursing homes, in the first two sessions at 11.10am and 2pm respectively, and direct provision centres, in the third session at 4.30pm.

Some 54 per cent of the 1,606 Covid-related deaths in Ireland took place in nursing homes, while there have been 13 clusters and 171 cases overall in direct provision centres. At least 25 residents of the Skellig Star Hotel in Caherciveen, Co Kerry (top) which was turned into a direct provision centre in March, have tested positive.

It’s being reported that Nursing Homes Ireland CEO Tadhg Daly will tell the committee, in his opening address, that “the dismay will live forever with us” and:

“We were exasperated. The sector required a specific plan. We knew that Covid-19 disproportionately impacts on older people. The planning and focus was almost exclusively on our acute hospitals. Multiple clusters initially emerged in our hospitals. But the numbers in nursing homes started to increase.”

According to the meeting’s schedule, those appearing before the committee include CEO of Nursing Homes Ireland Tadhg Daly, Executive Director of Sage Advocacy Mervyn Taylor, CEO of HIQA Phelim Quinn, and representatives from the HSE and the Department of Justice.

The committee meeting can be watched above or here

Meanwhile, a transcript of last week’s committee meeting can be read in full here.

Previously: Covid 19 And Older People: A Shameful Time For Change

An Uncomfortable Truth Out Of Sight

“Please Start Moving People Now”

Dr Marcus De Brun resigned from the board of the Medical Council, where he was appointed by Health Minister Simon Harris two years ago, over the handling of nursing homes during the coronavirus crisis.

Dear Editor,

There are presently circa 25,000 people residing in Irish Nursing Homes. The vast majority of whom are elderly, have underlying illnesses, and as such are at a significant risk of dying, as a consequence of Covid-19 infection.

The mortality of covid-19 among those over 80 yrs is estimated to be in the region of 7.8%(1). Risk increases in respect of age and underlying medical conditions.

At the Nursing Home that I provide care for, Covid-19 infection has resulted in a 12% mortality.

If we (for the sake of numbers) estimate mortality in Irish nursing homes at 10% and apply this figure to the population of Nursing Home residents (25k) this would give us an expected mortality of somewhere in the region of 2500 deaths within the sector.

At the time of writing, roughly half of the reported deaths to date have occurred within the Nursing Home sector (500), and this leaves us with an expected mortality of some 2000 people, presently residing in Irish Nursing Homes.

The Government has recently begun swab-testing for nursing home residents and staff. This is helpful in the management of cases within the Home as it allows for; isolation of residents, efforts at containment within the home etc.

Testing also provides GP’s with a confirmed diagnosis, and allows GP’s to inform families, attempt to protect staff and put essential measures in place.

However, Government measures MUST amount to more than simply providing a test and secondment of Nursing staff.

Spread within a Nursing Home setting is entirely inevitable. Confining Covid-negative residents within a Covid-positive Nursing Home exposes that resident to a significant risk of mortality.

At the Nursing Home that I provide care for, Covid-19 infection has resulted in a 12% mortality.

If (where possible) Covid-negative residents were permitted to return home to temporarily isolate/cocoon with their Covid-negative families, the risk of transmission and subsequent mortality would be substantially reduced.

It is understood that many Residents would not be medically fit for transfer, and many families would not be capable of providing care in the home setting.

There are however many many empty public and private beds in Irish hospitals at present. It is not unreasonable to suggest that many Covid-negative residents could be cared for in Covid free environments. All that is needed is a degree of political will.

It might be argued that confining Covid-negative residents within Covid-positive Nursing Homes, is tantamount to state sanctioned Euthanasia.

I would urge the Minister to act now upon the behalf of this most vulnerable cohort of people, and their families, before it is too
late.

Dr Marcus de Brun

Previously: Prominent doctor, appointed by Simon Harris to medical board, resigns over coronavirus crisis in nursing homes

Rollingnews/Medical Times

We care more about how people in nursing homes are dying now, than how they were living before Covid-19, says Clodagh Whelan

As the State responds to Covid-19 affecting 30 per cent of Ireland’s nursing homes and Department of Health figures, as of Thursday, showing 245 nursing home residents with the disease have died, social gerontologist Clodagh Whelan writes:

Nursing homes have existed in our communities and cared for our family and friends for many years.

The uncomfortable truth is that we care more about how people in nursing homes are dying now, than how they were living before Covid-19.

Over the past 20 years I have worked with older people and people living with dementia. During my eight years as part of the senior management team of a group of nursing homes, I saw how being under-resourced creates stressed staff and residents.

The lives of the staff and residents are intertwined – they are a family. They share meals, celebrate Christmas and birthdays. They know each other’s stories and struggles and they comfort each other when a member of the family dies.

That family is in trouble now and it’s taken the rest of us a while to notice.

A doctor on television tells us that people are dying in nursing Homes, newspapers are writing about those deaths and radio commentators talk of little else. Suddenly the Twittersphere lights up – we are All in this together.

Are we?

Like the parent away for too long, arriving home laden with gifts, we scramble to donate to charities supporting older people.

We write letters to people who live in nursing homes, celebrate the staff and organise fundraisers. We ask each other ‘how did this happen’? We are angry and motivated to help.

The narrative that places older people as recipients of our benevolent charity sits well. We are comfortable when our anger can be directed outward and we can blame the HSE, the Government, and the private nursing homes.

We are considerably less comfortable with the fact that older people living in nursing homes are human beings who were largely forgotten by all of us until this crisis.

Never before have the airwaves been so full of discussions on the care of older people.

As we, the general public, bask in indignation, we denigrate politicians and take swipes at private providers. We have the benefit of hindsight but are devoid of responsibility.

Yet, at the recent election, how many of us put the resourcing of care for older people on the agenda?

When the canvassers came to your door did you inquire about the resourcing of your local nursing homes? Did you inquire about the values of the National Treatment Purchase Fund or policy decisions that got us here?

So get angry, demand better care, ask the hard questions of the HSE, the Department of Health, HIQA and Nursing Homes Ireland. But ask them of yourself, too.

When this is all over, will you continue to advocate for quality care for older people and campaign for better conditions and supports for those who work in nursing homes?

People who live in nursing homes are human beings with a right to healthcare, though their address has changed their humanity has not.

We can honour their deaths by ensuring older people are never forgotten again.

Clodagh Whelan is a social gerontologist.

Rollingnews

St Mary’s Hospital in Phoenix Park, Dublin where 11 residents have died, ten of whom who tested positive for Covid-19 and one who is suspected to have had it

Earlier today.

On RTE’s Today with Seán O’Rourke.

Mr O’Rourke spoke to Fine Gael TD Neale Richmond, Labour Senator Rebecca Moynihan, Irish Daily Mail and Sunday Times columnist Brenda Power, and Irish Examiner special correspondent Mick Clifford during the show’s The Gathering slot.

They were discussing Covid-19-related deaths in Irish nursing homes, of which there have been 253 to date, when some of the panelists had this exchange.

[There have been 486 Covid-19-related deaths recorded to date]

Seán O’Rourke: “Brenda Power, do you agree with the suggestion that the authorities where, the nursing homes were considered certainly, may have taken their eye off the ball? Just because they were concentrating on the acute hospitals?”

Brenda Power: “Although, you know, for a start, I do know from friends who have parents and so on in nursing homes, they did, a lot of them did take action quite early on before there was any obligation on them to do so, to restrict visiting and so on. So, I do think it’s unfair to blame the staff or to point the finger in any way at the staff of the nursing homes.

“I was talking to a GP friend of mine, asking, you know, how come the attrition rate is so high. Well, first of all, you’re talking about a very vulnerable cohort which, of course, you could say, well it should have been foreseen.

“But, also, you know, they fall, they get sick, they break hips, they have to go into the general hospitals and they were bringing back the virus with them before anybody knew how widespread it was. So, you know, yes, of course, we’re playing catch-up. But, god Seán, in so many areas, in regard to this, this, these unprecedented times, we’re doing the best we can. We really are.

“And I mean I wonder if, I do wonder if whether the numbers, losing their lives in the nursing homes, is in particularly stark contrast to the relatively small numbers dying in the communities, compared to say the UK, Wales and Scotland included. You know, I think it may look an awful lot worse. And, plus, I think we’re being more honest about them to be honest.

“Because I think it’s emerging that the numbers in the North, for instance, that they’re not releasing the correct numbers or there might be a bit of massaging of figures of the people dying in nursing homes going on.”

Later

O’Rourke: “Brenda Power, the other thing is that we’ve seen the coroners say that they need to maybe be a bit more rigorous in identifying Covid-related deaths to that, as opposed to maybe having, putting on the [death] certs respiratory issues or whatever.”

Power: “Yeah, well, I mean, again, I’d be reluctant to categorise that as any attempt at fudge or cover-up. I believe they have up to three months, for a start, to certify a cause of death.

“And, secondly, I would say it’s probably the case that people are dying with Covid-19, in some cases, and maybe not necessarily of it. So it may be, it may be a case of semantics in some instances.

“Again, I’m reluctant to go down the line of assuming that there’s any attempt to… fudge…”

O’Rourke: “No, no, that’s not being suggested. But there maybe needs to be a bit of rigour, the way, about the way this thing is being approached. What would you say to that, Mick Clifford?”

Michael Clifford: “Yeah, I suppose there could be, Seán. But I would tend to agree with that, that you know, you are dealing with a scenario whereby an awful lot of these people have underlying conditions, unfortunately.

“And the reality is that, unfortunately, is that life expectancy for a number of them would not be great. And therefore, along comes this, and in some instances, it’s not recorded specifically like this.

“I mean, I don’t think there’s an underhand attempt to cover it up or anything but you are dealing with a pretty chaotic situation as we can see. Particularly, we’ve seen a couple of [nursing] homes in Dublin and Portlaoise, for instance, where you’ve large numbers of people losing their lives. And I can understand why, in that scenario, there could be some shortcomings in that regard.”

O’Rourke: “And I suppose…”

Power: “Seán, can I just say…”

O’Rourke: “Yes, Brenda…”

Power: “…before we terrorise people, you know, let’s remember that 70 per cent of nursing homes have no virus, they’re free of the virus. I know it’s desperately worrying for the people in the 30 per cent bracket but that’s still quite an impressive statistic in the circumstances.”

Listen back in full here

Related: Coronavirus kills 11 residents over two weeks in Dublin care home for the elderly (The Irish Times)

Previously: The Reporting Of Deaths

Counting ‘Every Death’ That ‘Involves A Positive COVID-19 Test’

Rollingnews