Covid crisis in aged care homes could have been averted

One of the most heartbreaking scenes in this pandemic is in the clusters in nursing homes where our most vulnerable seem to be almost imprisoned without adequate contact with their loved ones.

Urgent action is required to get adequate care and support into nursing homes and this is now happening (“Hunt sends medical SWAT team to help as Melbourne virus aged care fears hit home”, 28/7).

These scenes ought not to occur in a first world country. It seems that the Commonwealth Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety has not changed anything. Aged care is a national emergency and requires a national response led by the Prime Minister and relevant minister, and not just for the COVID crisis.

David Muir, Indooroopilly, Qld

Aged care facilities are a closed loop system of managing older people who have various abilities to care for themselves. They are not hospitals and their staff are not trained to deal with a highly virulent coronavirus once it is present and spreading in the home.

Crisis management should determine the weak links in the system. It seems obvious that in a closed system the weak link is that the virus enters through new intakes of residents, relatives of the residents who visit, or staff who mingle to some extent with society and work at the facility.

Before any virus is in the home there should be testing and appropriate wait times before new residents are admitted. There should be no family visits and staff should be tested before joining the team, wait for a week before working, be heat tested each time they come to work and only work at one aged care home.

After the virus is found to be in the home all bets are off. The infected should be taken to a hospital-quality treatment facility. The non-infected residents should be moved out, maybe to a quarantine facility, until the home is deep cleaned.

Roger Wolfe, Balwyn, Vic

Daniel Andrews and others rightly point to the need for everyone with any symptoms to be immediately tested for COVID-19 and also to isolate until they receive the test result. The financial disincentives are being addressed — and that’s critical — but it’s still unrealistic to expect people will do this, possibly multiple times throughout the cold and flu season, when COVID test results are not available for four to seven days. This is especially true for the young and the poor who are more likely to live in small spaces without gardens.

If we could get to the stage where everyone receives their result within 48 hours we could expect greater compliance with the isolate-after-testing imperative.

Heather Martin, Mullumbimby, NSW

More than 40 years ago I travelled to Holland to see a family member living in an aged care home. At that time men and women studying nursing had to work for six months of their course in an aged care home or they couldn’t graduate.

The idea is brilliant — the future nurses received experience in dealing with the medical experiences of older people and their youth and enthusiasm created a lovely atmosphere in these homes. When one group’s six months was up a fresh new group came for the next six months, so the home had a constant supply of medically qualified people.

Gloria Stevenson, Warana, Qld

This is a message for all those people who say just let the virus rip and we will just treat everyone who needs it in intensive care with a ventilator. At the end of that ventilator is a Registered Nurse. Do people imagine there is an endless supply of highly skilled trained Registered Nurses able to look after everyone on a ventilator? Plus, if nurses also get COVID-19, then what is the plan?

Nurses are not an expendable commodity in the pandemic; they, too, have lives and families.

Michelle Kerr, Asquith, NSW

Tell it how it really is, Premier — staff are not savvy with proper infection control and it seems management are too obsessed with their financials to pay enough Registered Nursing staff. And who on earth allowed staff to work between sites at this time? It’s ridiculous to suggest the Commonwealth is responsible for this debacle. Rigorous infection control — implemented at the first sign of trouble — would have stopped the spread of this virus. Kindness, understanding cross infection and proven nursing practices will keep our elderly safe.

Cluny Seager, Chermside, Qld