Case Studies

Care Campaign for the Vulnerable is receiving an unprecedented amount of correspondence like the one below. A loving daughter who visited her mother regularly and carried out a caring role now denied access because of Covid19. Her story resonates with the thousands of family members who regularly visited loved ones before the Coronavirus and the elderly reliant on this contact.

Sandra and her family visiting outside the care home on their mother's special birthday

"In January 2019 our family took the painful decision to place our Mum in residential care, she has Alzheimer's and is now deaf. For the previous 5 years, the family had taken care of her as she lived independently in sheltered housing. A member of the family would go every day and see all her personal care, take her out, spend precious time with her.

The home shut its doors to residents friends and family back in March – which we accepted was something that had to be done. It is beyond difficult to have been unable to see our Mum for many weeks. Mum was 90 at the end of May and thankfully we were able to have a socially distanced afternoon tea with her in the garden. Now visits can be arranged in their gazebo outside again at a social distance and now wearing PPE, although we did not have to wear PPE for the first few visits. The goalposts seem to move very rapidly.

These visits are all well and good whilst the weather is ok but soon when the weather changes it will be impossible to visit outside, the new government guidelines are out now and I believe Mum will be allowed 1 designated visitor (she has 6 children) to visit inside the care home, though when that will happen I don’t know.

Sandra's mother as a child

Families like mine are losing precious time with their loved ones and basically, this government is giving the care homes the final say on how these visits will operate. Sadly some of the people in charge of these care homes appear to enjoy their newfound power and some of them have little compassion.

My Mum took the time to give me and my siblings POA and yet our rights have been taken away from us. Prior to Covid 19, I was a very regular visitor along with my siblings in fact hardly a day went by when she did not have at least one visitor. We did not place our Mum in care lightly or abandon her, yet we feel now we are being pushed into this. There are currently no CQC visits to care homes and very few that allow inside visits and even if they do they are very restrictive, there is a danger that abuse in care homes could be going on and there are no outside eyes in these places to raise any issues for these vulnerable people.

Prior to Covid-19 when I visited my Mum I did a lot of personal care for her, cut her nails, gave her foot soaks, washed and styled her hair etc – I also did her laundry until lockdown but stopped because of the difficulties of getting it into and out of the home. On a visit in June my Mum was wearing a pair of trousers that did not belong to her, I told the home I wanted to start doing her laundry again to prevent this from happening but they are even stopping me from doing this simple task for my Mum – even though her laundry could be quarantined and regardless of the fact there is no legislation on this, they just keep saying no I email every Monday and I know every Monday they will say no, for no other reason than – they can.

Sandra and her mother

Immediate family should be classed the same as key workers. They can take our temperature and we will wear PPE we just want to be able to hug our Mum and get close enough to tell her how much we all love her, she does not have any understanding of this virus. My Sister and I visited her and she held her arms out to us and puckered up for a kiss, the carer said “no they can’t hug you, but I can hug you” and proceeded to give her a hug, both my Sister and I described the feeling we got as physical pain. I am sure the carer did not intend to hurt us but that’s how painful this situation is.

A few moments ago I received a call from my Mums care home to say a member of their staff has tested positive and therefore the residents are now in isolation, alone in their own rooms – no visitors, a carer popping in now and again. So they are at as much if not more risk from carers than their immediate family.

We know we are on borrowed time with our Mum and now that carers can visit the pub etc and hairdressers can go into care homes, we, or at the very least one of us, should be able to visit Mum properly.

If you have an interest in this family's experience please forward your details and we will send them on with permission -

ccftv.cares@gmail.com