Advocates warn any Covid lockdown in aged care facilities would affect people’s quality of life

As Covid cases shoot up in South Australia, advocates for the elderly have warned against rushing into lockdowns of aged care homes.

As South Australia braces itself for a “new wave” of Covid-19, aged care advocates are warning facilities to be “more vigilant” in protecting elderly patients.

It comes after the latest SA Health data revealed 1691 new Covid cases – a 55 per cent increase from the previous week’s 1069.

Aged Rights Advocacy Service chief executive Carolanne Barkla said she was “concerned” about any lockdowns happening at aged care facilities as they would impact on the quality of life for patients.

“ARAS would be concerned to see a return to locking down homes and not allowing safe visitation, which negatively impacts older people,” she said.

Aged Rights Advocacy Service chief executive Carolanne Barkla.

“Residential aged care homes will need to remain vigilant and assist with access to updated vaccinations and timely antiviral treatment as indicated by a medical practitioner and consented to by the resident.

“Do not visit if you are unwell and think about other ways to stay in contact such as telephone or Facetime with your loved one.”

SA’s Chief Public Health Officer Nicola Spurrier last week told a parliamentary committee into the state’s Covid-19 management that different organisations needed to adapt to the new age of the virus, which meant developing their own policies and procedures.

“We are in quite a different place to where we were last year. Covid still has an impact on society and to individuals,” she said.

Chief Public Health Officer Professor Nicola Spurrier. Picture: NCA NewsWire/David Mariuz

“We were under the emergency declaration last year and under that declaration, we could have public health directions that require people to do certain things, but we are not in that space anymore and I think it’s only appropriate that we are not,” she said.

“We have good oral antivirals as well for people who are more vulnerable, particularly older people and the system to get those out to people including to aged care and to Aboriginal community controlled health services.

“We are clearly in a new wave at the moment, so we’re at the beginning of that. I can’t tell you how high it will be but being a wave, things go up and they‘ll go back down again.”

Professor Spurrier said the number of deaths could be higher if it was not for people getting vaccinated, and encouraged people to receive their booster if needed.

Last week, 6017 people received a PCR test in SA, a 23 per cent increase compared to the previous week.

The past week there were 36 people in hospital with Covid.

South Australia has recorded a total of 939,051 confirmed Covid cases since the pandemic began and 1624 deaths.