Local transmission of COVID-19 in the State has been spilling out from closed clusters into the general community and it is the care homes for the elderly and infirm, where many chronically ill or bed-bound residents are staying in close proximity, which are at the highest risk of facing huge outbreaks.
A serious or uncontrolled COVID-19 outbreak in one of these institutions could be catastrophic and could result in high mortality as the elderly and those with chronic conditions are the most vulnerable to COVID-19.
Now that many care homes in the State have already started experiencing outbreaks, the Department of Social Justice has moved to issued clear instructions on how the elderly inmates should be protected from contracting infection from outsiders as well as care home staff who go outside.
However, the State might need to devise a set of clear guidelines on infection prevention, undertake regular testing of the inmates and care home staff and train the staff on infection control protocols as well as emergency measures to be adopted in case one of the inmates fall sick so that the mortality is kept down.
A care home at Kochuthura in Pulluvila in the capital had 35 inmates testing positive on Friday. Testing done at two convents and a care home at Thrikkakkara in Ernakulam district, following the death of one inmate had detected 95 positive cases.
An official version by the Department of Social Justice said that it was the violation of Government directives that outsiders should not visit care homes and that none from care homes should go outside, which had led to the outbreaks.
Not just care homes, all children’s homes, orphanages and homes for the differently abled and all such institutions where people are living in close proximity in both private and public sector might be at increased risk of becoming infective zones, should one of the staff members contract infection.
After 35 children in a government-run children’s home in Tamil Nadu had been infected, the Supreme Court had in June asked the States to detail the steps that were being adopted to protect the inmates in children’s homes.
In UK, if 29,000 ‘excess’ deaths had been reported from care homes during the pandemic, in many other European nations, care home deaths alone accounted for over one-third of total COVID-19 deaths
The lone exception was a care home in Lyon, France where the entire care home staff moved in with their belongings to the care home and isolated themselves with 106 inmates for several weeks together. None contracted the infection
“Care home staff should be told about the importance of avoiding movement of the staff outside and in between sister institutions, sharing of staff or temporary employees to prevent the spread of the virus. Arrangements should be made with a local hospital so that the inmates are not required to be taken outside for medical care,” a senior Health official said.
