ChrisTheRed
Well-known member
I have been on the sad end of this. My Mam (aged 89) was moved out of hospital into a Nursing Home in mid March as they wanted her out of hospital. She was able to get out of bed and walk to the loo with the aid of a walker in hospital. Once she was in the home she was in full lockdown and nobody could visit her.
For the first two months she was in a room upstairs where we could not see her at all. I bought a Portal to try to get to see her but the Wifi was so bad it would never connect so we had to rely on phoning her.
I managed to get her moved to a downstairs room where the family could visit and see her through the window. The change in her condition shocked me. She could not get out of bed as the carers rarely got her out of bed to move her joints (not a complaint with them but just a reflection on how short staffed and busy these people are).
Over the next months the family bought a phone with a holder that could have the phone above her bed so she could see us. We were never allowed in to see her and it was so hard to watch her condition deteriorate each week. I managed to get in to see her after a complaint to the Social Worker to get me in but this was a one off. She just spent all day in bed with no interaction. There were times we had to call the home as we stood outside to tell them Mam needed a drink of water. She did not have the strength to press the call button.
In July this year she passed without getting to see a lot of her family since February. I am convinced she would still be alive today if she had contact with the family and we could have got her out even in the garden and kept her active. However I still also wonder how I would have felt that without knowing it, somebody (even me) would have passed Covid on to her and to other elderly people in the home if they allowed visits.
I really feel for families and for the elderly as I would never wish the March-July heartache my family had but I would take the chance and see them as their quality of life is zero.
I think your story will resonate with many many people and its awful to read and it must have been awful for your mother to go through and end of life like that as it was for you to watch. I'm quite confident that if she had a voice about it she would have chosen to see you everyday over the risk that existed.