The majority of staff have still not been tested.
We were all living our lives as normal.
Manager Jennifer: ‘We were completely unaware.’
Highgate was among the first care homes to suffer a major outbreak.
Manager Jennifer: ‘Nobody has dealt with it in Scotland in a care home. We were the first. So it was very difficult to get anybody to give you advice 100%.’
‘We saw this coming as a country. We had a head start on other countries. Nothing was done. It was just like ‘be prepared’. Well help us prepare that was what I was saying.’
Nurse Shona: ‘Everyday somebody died.’
‘You build a relationship with people. We’ve lost quite a few big characters. And you miss them. It’s like your second family. You spend more time with these people than your own family sometimes. It’s very hard.’
Dementia patients can not be cared for without close contact.
Nurse Shona: ‘They’re not locked in their rooms. If they decide they’re going for a walk, they don’t understand hit this infection can spread.’
Carer Andy: ‘A lot of folk here can’t get out of their bed so they depend on us. We’re the carriers. So as soon as there was a confirmed case I think we should have all been tested. To minimise the spread.’
The last COVID death in Highgate was May 4th.
By then 22 residents had died.
The staff were not tested.
Its Chief Exec has said they haven’t got everything right in this crisis.
He told #c4news tonight testing in care homes was just ‘beginning’.
There’s been 10,000 care home deaths so far.
He also suggested excess deaths in care homes may be because care home residents were not being admitted to hospital.
There’s been confusion over the guidance.
Remarkably the webpage for the relevant guidance in Scotland is still down:
Nurse Shona said some people ‘were calling us these horrible names. They should be ashamed.’
You may be unlucky enough to see similar comments under this thread.
You were in here busting your guts to do the best job you can and folk just have negative things to say. They don’t know what we’re coping with.’
Nurse Shona: ‘We all cry all the time. And this should be a happy place. It is a happy place. It’s a good place to work. But we need to be really careful. Because I don’t want Corona to come back.’
And my fabulous team @JoshHo_ and @luciajwalker
Testing is the responsibility of national governments.
Test is the first word in Test, Trace, Isolate, the @WHO advice all along.
Care homes can’t build national testing infrastructure. If that’s not the job of government in a pandemic, what is?
@nicolasturgeon denied lack of testing was a failure.