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Hans Kugle, the director for Europe of the World Health Organization (WHO), declared this Thursday that the pandemic is a “Unimaginable human tragedy” for nursing homes.
In some countries, according to Kluge, there is a situation that is “Deeply disturbing”. According to preliminary calculations by the institution, in some countries “up to half of deaths from covid-19 are from residents of long-term care institutions.”
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For Kluge, “there is an immediate and urgent need to rethink and adapt the operation” of these establishments facing the epidemic. In particular, it is a matter of prioritizing tests, equipping healthcare personnel well, and organizing special units for covid-19 patients.
Nursing homes have become one of the main sources of death in Europe during the pandemic. These centers are in the sights of the health authorities, due to the numerous investigations to clarify the deaths that occur in these places.
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Due to the lack of official figures, in many cases due to the difficulty of obtaining the center’s own data, and in another due to the delays in counting victims, international media estimates that carry out counts speak of thousands of deaths in these residences. Next, we tell you what the situation is in some of the European countries.
The drama of the elderly in Spain due to the coronavirus
Nearly 16,000 elderly people have died in Spain as a consequence of the coronavirus in the last two months.
It is the most vulnerable sector in the country, which has around 5,500 residences. Most of them have died in the communities of Madrid, Catalonia and in the two regions closest to the country’s capital, Castilla-León and Castilla-La Mancha.
The deceased elderly, according to the Ministry of Health, represent almost 70 percent of the total in all of Spain, where more than 22,000 people have died. In Madrid alone, the total is close to 6,000 seniors.
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Spain is one of the European countries with the highest life expectancy, standing at around 83 years.
The drama of the nursing homes or nursing homes was initially due to the lack of adequate sanitary equipment and rapid tests to detect the disease. “The aid we had was zero, nothing, due to the overflow of administrations”, he says TIME the director of two centers in Madrid.
“The only help we had was from the Military Emergency Unit and firefighters, in terms of disinfection and emergency management, but we did not have protective equipment, which is what we needed most so that the workers could help the elderly “He adds. The result was 40 percent of employees isolated for coronavirus symptoms. “We couldn’t even verify it due to lack of exams,” he says.
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The Government will ask the Parliament for an extension of the confinement to maintain the downward trend.
Although the situation is more controlled now, the chaos was experienced fifteen days ago.
“The referral of the elderly to hospital centers did not exist because the hospitals were also overwhelmed”, explains the director of the two nursing homes. “The elderly died in residences or in their own homes,” he says. “The remains were taken care of by the funeral homes, according to the established protocols, but it took several hours before they were collected due to overwork,” he adds.
Added to this is the fact that many nursing homes did not initially notice the cause of death and attributed it to the deaths that normally occur in these types of centers. The alarm raised when the number of deaths grew in an unusual way.
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To control contagion, regional governments intervened not only the elderships operated by the public sector, but a significant number of private centers. In the Community of Madrid they took the reins of fourteen centers for the elderly.
The State Attorney’s Office opened several criminal investigations to determine responsibility in cases not attended on time. There are already more than 200 proceedings initiated in this regard.
The number of deaths has decreased as a result of the purchase of rapid tests, better provisions for toilets and isolation plans for those affected, plus the resounding ban on visits. “Now we have stable days, although far from normal because we continue with isolated people” explains the director.
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“We are recovering personnel who were on leave, we have appropriate medicines and there are no more infections. The deaths that take place are for normal reasons among older people. ”
On the other hand, the exact number of elderly people who died in their homes is unknown, since the official Spanish statistics only record deaths in the centers themselves and in hospitals.
Apart from the figures, there is the drama experienced by families, especially grandchildren, in a country where parents go to grandparents to take care of children while they work. “The families have been very understanding and express their appreciation because they know that the workers have risked their health”, assures the mentioned director. However, they express pain over the irrecoverable losses that mourn their homes.
In Italy it was ‘a massacre’
In Italy, the country with the most deaths in Europe from coronavirus and the second in the world, what has happened in nursing homes in recent weeks has been “a slaughter”, according to the deputy director general of the World Health Organization, Ranieri Guerra.
The Italian Higher Institute of Health (ISS) reported that between 6,000 and 7,000 elderly people died in residences between February 1 and April 17, a figure that doubles the one that was shuffled so far.
Of those deceased, fewer than 1,000 had undergone the test, but 40 percent had symptoms of covid-19, such as cough and fever, the INSS explained, after making it clear that these are partial figures and that they are still investigating.
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“Much of the deaths were recorded in the second half of March, during the peak of infection in the country”, clarified this Friday Graziano Onder, of the INSS, in a press conference. The Italian authorities are investigating more than 600 residences throughout the territory and have observed that 17 percent of them have irregularities, such as that of Pio Albergo Trivulzio, in Milan (north), in which 150 elderly people have died with coronavirus out of a total 1,000 residents.
According to the Efe agency, sources from the country’s main union, CGIL, both for the ISS and for them, it is being very difficult to obtain data, because many residences do not want to provide figures and that is why police investigations will be essential.
On the other hand, of the more than 20,000 deaths in France from coronaviruses, the number of deaths in residences and dependency centers rises to 6,860, according to figures reported at the end of last week. These are partial figures, since the health authorities have only received data from some 5,450 residences out of the more than 7,000 that exist.
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In fact, it is revealing that of the cases confirmed throughout the French territory as of Thursday, April 16, more than half were located in these residences and centers. Another example of the magnitude of mortality in these establishments is that the 700 residences in the Paris region have at least one death from coronavirus, according to regional authorities.
Closed to visits since March 11, the residences are the object of particular attention by the Government, which has multiplied the tests on it and the president, Emmanuel Macron, assured in his last public intervention last Monday that they will try to organize to that relatives can visit the most serious elderly.
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Signs that say ‘All together, without fear’ are part of the Italian government’s campaign to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
What is known in the UK and Germany
In the United Kingdom, where the daily number of deaths reported by the Government only includes those occurred in hospitals, alarms have been set off in recent days by the increase in deaths in nursing homes without knowing if they have died from the coronavirus due to the lack of tests.
In England, only Care England, the most important organization that manages these centers, has estimated at 1,400 the elderly killed by virus, while in Wales the approximate figure is 81 and 237 in Scotland, while there is still no concrete data in the case of Northern Ireland.
The Alzheimer’s Society estimates, for its part, that the actual figure may reach 2,500. According to Economy Minister Rishi Sunak, work is underway to obtain “precise data” at these centers, but he warned that this is a great “logistical challenge” because there are “many more” nursing homes than hospitals.
Meanwhile, there are also no official figures of deaths in residences in Germany, where the Ministry of Health insisted today that it does not have these figures because the data does not take into account the place of residence.
According to some sources, as of Sunday, April 5, more than 150 residents had died from the coronavirus, although it seems to be a figure far removed from reality. In the absence of statistics at the federal level on the number of infections and deaths, it is the different districts that are reporting on the new hotspots in centers for the elderly.
Thus, for example, in Zwönitz, in Saxony (east), until last Tuesday, 55 of the 85 residents of a senior center tested positive for coronavirus, of which ten died, while in Langenzenn, in Bavaria (south), 13 Elderly people between 79 and 93 years old died in a residence where 97 infections were confirmed.
INTERNATIONAL AND JUANITA SAMPER OSPINA
* With information from agencies
** EL TIEMPO / MADRID CORRESPONDENT
