Staffing shortages gripping Britain's health services must not leave dementia patients isolated from their family, a Welsh MP told Boris Johnson during an emotional speech in the Commons.
Liz Saville Roberts was close to tears as she revealed fears she could be separated "indefinitely" from her own mother, Nancy, who was diagnosed with dementia before Christmas.
The human rights of elderly and disabled people “are not fair-weather luxuries”, she warned as the pandemic response continues to place strict limits on the number of care home visitors.
Speaking during Prime Minister's Questions, the Plaid Cymru MP said she was called to sit with her in hospital on Monday due to coronavirus-related staff shortages.
But she fears that the pair “are likely to be separated indefinitely” when her mother moves into a care home.
She said: “My mother, Dr Nancy Saville, was diagnosed with dementia just before Christmas.
“I was called to sit with her in hospital on Monday because of Covid staff shortages, but I fear that we – like so many of our constituents in similar circumstances – are likely to be separated indefinitely when she is moved into an EMI Nursing Home.
“John’s Campaign has successfully campaigned in every UK nation that people disabled by dementia have a special need for person-centred care under Equality Act 2010.
"But in reality, there remain many care homes and hospitals where even the most minimal visits can be denied – leading to isolation and separation, which cause irreversible damage to well-being.
“Does he agree with me that the human rights of disabled people, sick people and the elderly are not fair-weather luxuries, and that everyone with dementia, wherever they live, has the right to care from a family member?"
It comes as a coalition of groups has written to local health and care leaders calling on them to ensure that restrictions on contact are proportionate.
A dozen care leaders have signed the letter, which sets out how every care home resident should be able to nominate a loved one as an essential caregiver (ECG) who can continue providing support even if the home is in outbreak.
The latest Government guidance, updated in December in the light of the spread of Omicron, restricts the number of regular visitors a resident can receive to three, plus an ECG.
Currently, if a home has two or more confirmed Covid cases, outbreak measures such as closing to new admissions and restricting most indoor visits can remain in place for 28 days.
ECGs should be able to continue visiting indoors, the guidance says.
But the groups say the role is still not well understood and some providers experiencing outbreaks have misinterpreted public health advice, resulting in ECGs being unable to visit.
Helen Wildbore, director of the Relatives & Residents Association who helped coordinate the letter, said people with dementia “think they’ve been abandoned”.
She said: “Untold damage to health and wellbeing is being caused by the response to the pandemic, in the name of keeping people safe.
“For people living in care away from their families, contact with them becomes all the more important yet they have faced far more stringent restrictions than the rest of the country."
The Prime Minister offered his "deepest sympathies" to the MP, and said: "And I know how her feelings must be exacerbated by the difficulties that so many people up and down the country are facing because of the restrictions we're having to put on care homes and I sympathise deeply.
"We do have to try to strike a balance and to keep care home residents safe and and do what we can to prevent the epidemic from taking hold in care homes.
"We continue to allow three nominated visitors to care homes and there should be no limit to the duration of those of those visits, but I understand the particular distress and anxiety that [the MP's] circumstances are causing and can I suggest that she has a meeting as soon as it can be arranged with [the Health Secretary].
A spokesman for Labour leader Keir Starmer said: "I thought it was a very powerful intervention that was made and I don't think anyone listening to it couldn't have been moved by what we've said and it was yet another of the many human examples we have of the the sacrifices that people have made throughout the pandemic."
