how are things really

Within nursing homes housing the elderly second wave fears and increased infections are very concrete. Protect the most fragile is and should be the priority. However, going from theory to practice implies new restrictions for those who often already live in situations of loneliness. It will take balance and willingness to make decisions in any case. And there are those who have already moved. Official figures say that from February to May, there were 9,154 deaths in nursing homes and 7.4 percent had tested positive for the coronavirus. The real numbers could be heavier.

Senior facilities that are already closed to visitors

What happens now? “Does a Christmas of illness and desolation await you, alone behind the windows, scanning the entrance to clinics closed to relatives?” Grazia Longo asks about Print. Now things are under control, although there are almost no reports of new cases, but they are sporadic. The prevention implemented by the different facilities is working and experts do not believe that there will be a wave of infections like last spring. Some Tuscan residences have already decided to close their doors to visitors, after outbreaks occurred in the region.

Just to protect, as a precautionary measure, its residents, twelve Tuscan residences for the elderly, belonging to the Associazione Residenza Anziani Toscana (Arat), have already decided to close the doors of their structures to outside visitors. A preventive option, put into practice since yesterday. “Our sole objective is to safeguard our guests, who are subject to a very high risk – declares Franca Conte, president of Arat – and to avoid a return to a period of terror against nursing homes.”

The economic crisis of residential facilities for the elderly

Meanwhile, the continuity of residential services for the disabled and non-self-sufficient elderly is seriously threatened. To support it are Anffas, Agespi, Anaste, ANSDIPP, ARIS, Uneba who, in a joint letter to Parliament, the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Social Policies, Regions, the Unified Conference and Anci, request an intervention . punctual, comprehensive and important “in residential services, both intervening in the regulatory emergency decrees of this period and also providing a significant and adequate space for social and health issues, in the context of the health policies that will constitute this as well as one of the priority axes of intervention to be financed with the Recovery Fund or with other European interventions “.

Residential structures of a sanitary, socio-sanitary and social welfare character are “unfortunately affected by deep economic crisis derived from the Covid-19 emergency, with the consequent serious repercussions on the quality and continuity of the services provided in favor of people with severe and very serious disabilities and non-self-sufficient older people, as well as in the related maintenance of current employment levels. “It will not be an easy fall.

Dying from quarantine at age 87 (negative)

the Daily occurrence Today he publishes a moving letter from a social worker in a small town near Verona: another side of the Covid emergency, a very sad story and a lesson.

An elderly couple, he 80, she 87. Together for life, no children, no grandchildren, no close relatives. They managed for as long as they could, then I joined them in allowing them a decent life in their own home. Until the black beast, Covid, calls. The two terrified, entrenched in the house. Certainly not left alone, but still alone. With the isolation comes his senile, authoritarian dementia, very fast. Terrifying for her, who at one point no longer knows how to handle her husband, who every three by two gets into her head to do absurd things and cannot dissuade him; he endangers himself and often falls. You don’t sleep at night. September arrives and is exhausted, despite home help. A respite period is needed in a sheltered facility (in this case, a retirement home), to allow him to regain strength and for him to be treated.

The day of admission arrives (after the negative swab).

The reception is traumatic, they take him and immediately take him to his room. They don’t even make them say hello. She returns home, bewildered, immediately begins to call the structure to find out how her husband is, if he has eaten, if he has slept. They do not have mobile phones and the operators do not pass them to them. They give him another swab as soon as he arrives, also this negative: but he has to remain isolated, again, for 15 days. He is lucid at times, but generally does not know where he is. I can’t see anyone. She insists (and so do I) that they show it to her even for 5 minutes, behind glass, to show her that her wife is still there, that she has not abandoned him. Impossible, the first visit is allowed after 3 weeks (15 days plus the time of the third swab). Well, he never saw her again: after 13 days of “incarceration” he just let go. Without having any pathology that could cause death. They tell her that night at 2, she was alone. And desperate. He was excellently protected by Covid, but was killed for lack of humanity.

Do not lose humanity, even when everything around you is bad: it is the most difficult challenge, but such a story should not repeat itself.

Brusaferro: “Prevent viruses from passing from young to old”

“Fortunately for more than two weeks, the growth of the median age of infections has slowed slightly above 40. The battle now is to prevent the virus from passing from the very young to the elderly, ending congestion. health services ”. He says this in an interview with The impression the president of the Higher Institute of Health, Silvio Brusaferro. “We must act immediately knowing that the measures taken today will relapse no earlier than 15 days,” he specifies, anticipating that the limitations that the government will take will reduce “the risks inherent in aggregations. Even informal, such as family reunions too “extensive parties, birthdays, ceremonies, weddings. We must limit attendance as in nightclubs and in front of schools. Knowing that respecting the rules today means avoiding more restrictive measures tomorrow.”

Regarding possible local blockades, Brusaferro explains that “a rapid growth in cases and a prolonged Rt above 1.25 may be accompanied by more restrictive measures at the local level that do not necessarily translate into real blockades but could further limit aggregations social. “.

The shocking numbers on deaths at Lombard RSA

Source: La Stampa →