Nursing home residents are not 'expendable', says advocacy group 

Department of Health figures showi more than a third of Covid-19 deaths have been linked to nursing homes this month so far.

Somebody needs to explain why Covid-19 is still so “rampant” in so many nursing homes, the head of a vulnerable adults support service has said.

Sarah Lennon, Executive Director of Sage Advocacy, has also said that just because people are in a nursing home doesn’t mean they are “expendable”.

She said society needs to ask itself if the current model of congregated care is even acceptable anymore, given the extent nursing homes have proven to be “ripe” for spreading the deadly virus.

She was speaking to the Irish Examiner in light of Department of Health figures showing yet again that more than a third of Covid-19 deaths have been linked to nursing homes this month so far.

Similar figures emerged last month.

In total, there have been more than 199 outbreaks in nursing homes, one of the most serious of which has been up to 25 deaths at Ballynoe Nursing Home in Upper Glanmire, Co Cork in recent weeks.

'Need to learn from lessons'

Ms Lennon said: “There has been a focus on getting things under control to prevent more deaths.

“But we need to learn from the lessons while we are experiencing them if we are to have the impetus to get the change we need.

“There is no point letting this settle down and forgetting and going back to normal.

“That is not an option. Just because people are old and in a nursing home doesn't mean they are expendable. There are questions that need to be answered.

The only answer has been to lock people in nursing homes and deprive them of visitors, to deprive them from a life outside the nursing home

“And yet, even in that environment, this disease has run rampant and somebody needs to tell us why.” 

Sage Advocacy is one of many organisations backing calls for a public inquiry into what has happened in nursing homes during the pandemic.

Ms Lennon believes there needs to be far more urgency around the setting up of an inquiry.

She believes society should also be asking itself a few hard questions.

We need to figure out what happened to people. People deserve justice. But we also need to not lose the opportunity to ask ourselves as a society: are we prepared to stand for this?

“We know the virus attacks older people disproportionately.

“The percentage of people harmed in nursing homes is disproportionate and the environment is a significant factor. The way nursing homes are constructed, the model of congregated care is an issue.

“Obviously nobody could have foreseen the pandemic.

“But it is taking a pandemic to show the extreme fault lines are there.

“Any nature of congregated care is a very ripe environment for the spread of any virus or disease.” 

Sage Advocacy recently set up a Nursing Home Residents Family Forum.

The platform is to help relatives raise issues of concern which the organisation says it can either help deal with or raise with State agencies.

Sage Advocacy can be contacted via its website sageadvocacy.ie