Shocking reports from care homes

How is that a fact?

Well if covid-19 accelerated their deaths, whether by weeks, months or years, then surely that was the cause of it. Everyone dies, the fact that they are elderly means their days would be numbered anyway like the rest of us isn’t a good enough reason for shrugging this off. Large numbers dying alone everyday, care staff who aren’t properly equipped or trained, families having to say their goodbyes through a window, surely this constitutes a crisis.

I can't agree with that Baggs. I think the converse is true.

People can live for many years with underlying conditions controlled with medication and could probably continue to do so.
As Tony Benn's consultant said to him when discussing his illness "You will probably die with this illness, not from it* which proved to be correct.

However, having an underlying condition could make someone more susceptible to the virus which may or may not kill them.

I suspect that many more people have died in hospital, where they may have been for other reasons, and the death was put down as pneumonia even before the extent of this was properly realised.

I forget where I was reading about people dying with covid19 and those dying due to it. I mentioned it on another thread but can't remember which.

Until pneumonia was easily treatable with antibiotics, it was a very common final cause of death among old people.

I think the idea I mentioned up thread is that covid19, like pneumonia in the past, is an added burden of illness for people who are seriously ill already.

The cause of death of my paternal grandfather was given as heart failure. His heart failed because he'd been fighting (yes, that word; nowt wrong with the expression) emphysema for several years. So it was really emphysema that killed him. The Coal Board eventually admitted this and made compensatory payments to widows or other descendents of him and other miners accordingly. Their lives were shortened by disease caused by their working conditions.

So, anyway, I've no skin in the game with this with and due to idea. I just think it's an important distinction and I don't think it's one made by ignoramuses.

People are said to die with rather than due to some cancers nowadays.

Please remember when commenting that for some of us GNs this is not an academic discussion to be picked over, but rather our daily reality, with our spouse or other loved one ensconced in a care home. We cannot visit, can only see and talk to them via skype. There is much talk on Alzhemiers Talking Point of bringing them home to self isolate together.

Its all so very sad. Three of my GC are carers, on in a home for people with dementia. All three just go to work and then straight home with no shopping for food as they are afraid of taking the virus into the home. At the moment I do a massive shop on a Friday for the three girls and my son as they are now all living in one house. My son comes over and picks it up from the drive way, a wave and he's gone. I just hope they all stay safe.

Large numbers dying alone everyday, care staff who aren’t properly equipped or trained

What training?
There's no training to be had.
Carehomes already look after people with infectious diseases: MRSA, TB, MARO, ESPL.
As there is no treatment/cure for CV what training is there?
All there is on offer is basic care. The same care needs their service group already have.

They already have and use basic PPE
The same PPE hospital staff would use on a ward.

They dont have the specialist PPE that you might see on telly. Theyre worn by anaesthetists putting in a ventillators etc. But they DO have "PPE" and use it daily. Nobody has been changing pads with their bare hands all along.

Care homes already regularly care for people suffering with or dying of infectious pneumonias.

CV isnt any different in terms of individuals care needs than flu etc

There arent any extra skills or tools. No specialist treatments or techniques.

By the point it gets to the pneumonia stage for someone in a care home, isolation or specialist masks etc would be locking the stable door after the horse has bolted. All it would achieve would be to make the care more dehumanised.

You know in a hospital, if someone on a normal ward gets CV. The bay isnt then split up, they are already exposed so isolated together in bays not all moved out to side rooms. Because its too late, at that point. Same goes for care homes.

Its too late once CV is known or suspected.

Bigger care homes who know their own layouts could put things in place like floor/cohort isolation where carers are permanantly assigned a floor. And that floor has its own meal sittings. But nobody can tell/teach that its too dependant on individual layout and logistics