UK Government failures leave older people “abandoned to die” in care homes during COVID 19 pandemic

October 21st, 2021

The first wave – it’s not rocket science.

  1. First the government sent thousands of elderly and/or vulnerable people from hospital to care homes at the start of lockdown in March 2020 (https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/press-release/2020/10/uk-older-people-in-care-homes-abandoned-to-die-amid-government-failures-during-covid-19-pandemic/). Given these elderly were in hospital, they MUST have been ill and therefore MUST have needed to be there. But Matt Hancock’s health department saw fit to turf these people out, to clear beds for an NHS that NEVER became overwhelmed. It was clear that most hospitals were largely empty within a few weeks of the lockdown. And of course none of those discharged from hospital were screened for any bugs before being sent to homes.
  2. Next, blanket DNRs (https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/health/do-not-resuscitate-orders-given-inappropriately-in-first-lockdown-care-home-provider-report-finds-3171085)were placed on care home residents without consent or knowledge, completely inappropriate and utterly reprehensible. The question is, was this policy ordered by the Department of Health or PHE, or just something care providers decided to do? The former seems more likely, as DNRs spiked in the first lockdown. Tragically, people with disabilities and autistic people (https://www.openaccessgovernment.org/blanket-dnr/122280/) also suffered from a lack of care, “disproportionately high mortality rates” and existing health inequalities – which came to the surface in an undeniable way.
  3. The Government then made sure to withdraw all support measures from care homes under the guise of public health concerns. So in care home GP visits were stopped, physio was stopped, SALT team visits were stopped, and crucially family visiting, therefore oversight, was stopped. GP’s conducted remote appointments and made crucial clinical decisions from the same, which is IMPOSSIBLE for people with complex medical needs. Some care residents starved to death as a result of not having family there to feed them. (http://www.relres.org/frailty-and-death-certificates/)
  4. In March 2020 Matt Hancock’s Health Department bought 2 years worth of midazolam from Accord. Midazolam is a sedative that depresses respiration. It is used in surgery sometimes. In the hands of a competent anesthesiologist, it is used appropriately for surgery sedation, and the counter acting drug, Flumazenil (https://www.rn.com/nursing-news/whats-the-antidote-dealing-with-accidental-overdose/), is on hand in case of an over dose of midazolam. However, it seems the order of 2 years worth of midazolam was not destined for hospitals or surgery, because all elective surgery was cancelled within the NHS, for at least 3 months from the end of March 2020. (https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/coronavirus-nhs-operations-cancelled-cases-deaths-hospital-a9464726.html%3Famp)
  5. The midazolam was actually dispensed into care homes, and hospices, and in some instances was given to people in their own homes. So much midazalom was dispensed to these areas, that by May 2020, Accord Healthcare, one of five manufacturers of the drug, told The Pharmaceutical Journal (https://pharmaceutical-journal.com/article/news/supplies-of-sedative-used-for-covid-19-patients-diverted-from-france-to-avoid-potential-shortages) that it had to gain regulatory approval to sell French-labelled supplies of midazolam injection to the NHS, after having already sold two years’ worth of stock to UK wholesalers “at the request of the NHS” in March 2020.
  6. The 2 years worth of midazolam, and the further supply from Accord, was prescribed to and led to increased deaths in care homes during April and May 2020. In April 2020 there was over a 100% increase in out of hospital prescribing of midazolam (https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8514081/amp/Number-prescriptions-drug-midazolam-doubled-height-pandemic.html). There was an upward trend in May 2020 too, although not by as much as 100%.
  7. From March 2020, to 7 August 2020, there were 29,542, excess deaths in all care homes, a 20% increase compared with previous years. (https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12916-021-01945-2) The vast majority of these went down as Covid deaths, without, prior to July, the residents EVER having been tested. How was this allowed? Because the Government changed the rules on death registration in the Coronavirus Act 2020 (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2020/7/contents/enacted), to allow a medical certificate cause of death (MCCD) to be completed even if a care resident was not seen by any medical practitioner during their last illness. In such a scenario a doctor was allowed to state, to the best of their knowledge and belief, the cause of death.
  8. Even worse, COVID-19 was made an acceptable ‘direct’ or ‘underlying’ cause of death for the purposes of the MCCD and although COVID-19 is a notifiable disease, this did not mean that deaths from COVID-19 had to be reported to the coroner, and neither could the family of a victim ask for an inquest by jury, (as is usual with deaths from notifiable diseases), because the Government suspended s 7 (2) (c) of The Coroners and Justice Act 2009 in the Coronavirus Act 2020. (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2009/25/contents)
  1. Whilst all the above was going on, as if that was not enough, anyone with a sniffle was being told to isolate for 14 days, and people were being placed into abject fear, by 24/7 doomsday media reporting. This led to exhausted, overworked, underpaid, care workers, quarantining at home for 2 weeks, which in turn led to staff shortages and dangerously low staff to resident ratios. This no doubt contributed to gaps in the care and oversight of very vulnerable people, and inevitably to the death of residents, those deaths then being registered as Covid 19 given the above policies.

Incidentally, a similar approach was adopted for those “over a certain age” who went into hospital during both the first and subsequent lockdown. They entered with mostly mild illnesses, to be inexplicably given a DNR without consent, and then given midazolam for “agitation”. Within around 30 hours, sometimes less, they were dead.

All of these care home residents that died, along with those that died in hospital as a result of the above policies, they mattered. They were someone’s parent, grandparent, brother, sister or spouse. They were loved and valued by their family and friends, and their deaths have caused anguish and sorrow. The horrific thing is that their deaths could have been avoided. At the very least some of the deaths were caused by Government policy and failures, but at worst alot of these deaths WERE caused by injecting people with high doses of midazolam, in many cases, in combination with morphine. That is, simply put, murder.

What is astounding is that few people seem to care. There has of course been the whitewash, that was supposed to be a public enquiry, into how care homes, and their residents, were treated during lockdown. But no one has been held accountable, despite Matt Hancock blurting out that he stopped blanket DNRs eventually, (ergo he knew about them then).

Where is the outrage at what has happened?

Where is the justice for the families of the victims?

Where are the elderly and disability charities and campaign groups, the human rights lawyers? They are all silent.

And worse still, so is the vast majority of the population of this country.

Extract from “Pandemic diary of a front line lawyer for the eldery” – kindly provided by the family of Clare Wills Harrison.

For further diary extracts, to be released soon, subscribe to Lawyers of Light here (https://t.me/lawyersoflight)

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