Coronavirus deaths in nursing homes will be looked back on with “great sorrow and great shame” and as a national scandal.
Fianna Fail TD John McGuinness has called for a national inquiry into the State failings.
Damning evidence presented this morning before the Oireachtas revealed how the crucial care of our elderly was ignored in the early days of the Covid-19 outbreak.
More than half of the country’s 1,606 deaths from the deadly virus tragically occurred in our nursing homes.
The committee heard today how nursing home staff were forced to wear painters’ overalls because they couldn’t get proper protective wear in the early days of the coronavirus emergency.
This was just one of the shocking outcomes of the national shortage of PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) that emerged at the Oireachtas coronavirus committee this afternoon.
Nursing Homes Ireland Chief Executive, Tadgh Daly, was giving evidence today and he said that he was “exasperated by the lack of engagement” from the State when his organisation went looking for help earlier this year.
Mr Foley said that the clearing out of hospitals and discharging of elderly patients to nursing homes to prepare for an onslaught meant the problems were just moved to nursing homes.
He said: “There should’ve been a national plan.
“The discharge of patients was an attempt to prepare hospitals, but the surge happened in nursing homes.
“There was no plan [from the HSE].”
Mr McGuinness was forthright in his calls for answers at the committee.
He said: “It’s clear that this is a national scandal.
“We’ll reflect on this with great sorrow and great shame.
“It reflects a complete failure of policy, a complete disregard for the care of older people.
“NPHET and the Department (of Health) have serious questions to answer.
“We need to be clear where the failures occurred.
“Without doubt, this is a shame on all of us.
“Without doubt, this is a shame on all those that were responsible.”
Mr Daly added: “As a society we didn’t pay enough attention to those in residential care.”
