Caregivers denounce suggestion to remove elderly from homes

Owners of homes for the elderly have expressed deep concern about the health of their clients if they were to be removed from group residences without proper care and facilities.

On Saturday during a virtual press conference, Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh advised members of the public to take their relatives out of group residences and keeping them in their homes where possible to avoid overcrowding at those facilities.

He also said the ministry had produced formal guidelines which would be published next week, but listed some. They included stopping visitors from entering the home unless absolutely necessary, limiting the number of people who visit the homes, cleaning and sanitising the homes regularly, caregivers wearing masks and gloves and disposing of those gloves after caring for each person, doing basic tests on the health of employees, and spacing out the residents in the homes as much as possible.

However, one upset homeowner told Sunday Newsday most registered homes had those initiatives in place since March 11.

“On March 11 the TT Residential Care Association had a meeting with members on what to do with covid19. We realised the elderly were at risk and took the initiative to put all those guidelines in place. We were caring for our clients when they weren’t important to the Government.

She said under the Private Hospitals Act, homes were required to have an isolation area, as well as an on-call doctor and nurse attached to the home. They also had strict sanitisation processes in place including having workers leave their shoes outside and shower before interacting with patients.

“Now the ministry is damaging our image and asking people to take the elderly out of a controlled environment where they are safe. They are making us look as if we have been doing nothing. We have given our lives to what we do. We enjoy and loving caring for them, and they in turn show their gratitude and love.”

Another member said the association was invited to a sensitisation session with ministry officials on Wednesday, and the ministry was impressed by what they had done. So much so that the guidelines announced were those supplied by the association.

She said the association also supplied the fact that there were between 3,000 and 6,000 elderly people in 169 registered, and an unknown number of unregistered homes.

She added that separating the elderly was possible to some extent but the clients relied on each other heavily to get throughout the day. However, since the environment was so controlled, there was little to no risk.

She said before the Minister’s announcement, she received numerous calls to take in new clients because people realised it was safer than their homes. She did not because the association advised its members not to accept new clients after March 11 to reduce the risk of covid19 entering the home.

On Saturday, however, both owners speaking in their personal capacity fielded numerous calls by panicked sponsors seeking to pick up their elderly. Some sponsors who lived abroad also called believing elderly homes in TT had cases of covid19.

“If sponsors start to take the elderly out, then we have just lost the battle with the elderly. Because if you cannot control your own citizens, telling them, ‘stay home, stay home, stay home,’ and you can’t get them to stay home, and then you put the elderly there with people going out of the house and coming back home, you now transmit that virus to the elderly.”

Deyalsingh said the elderly was the most at-risk population and so asked owners and operators of homes to keep a daily clinical log of symptoms of patients. “All these homes would be under the control of the County Medical Officer of Health and we have put out infection prevention control guidelines.”

Chief Medical Officer, Dr Roshan Parasram added that the ministry paid attention to mortality trends in other countries and people over 60 were at greatest risk of death and the older the person, the greater the risk.

“In keeping with international statistics, we expect that as comorbidities are added to that list, and most of the persons over 60 would have hypertension, diabetes or some other illness, it increases the risk of death. So combined they are a very, very, vulnerable population.”

He said if the virus entered an elderly home there would be rapid spread and a high death rate.

Contacted for a comment, TTRCA president, Caroline Ruiz declined, saying she would release a statement at a later date.