‘This whole corridor is dead’: Europe’s coronavirus care home disaster
Wherever the virus spread uncontrolled, elderly care homes were left unprotected
Across
Europe, coronavirus has ravaged homes for the elderly, raising questions about why the part of society most vulnerable to the disease was overlooked in planning for the pandemic.
Though healthcare systems and policy reactions to the pandemic varied widely, one thing is consistent: in countries where national authorities lost sight of where the virus was spreading, it found its way into care homes and left devastation in its wake.
Roughly half of deaths from the virus across
Italy,
France,
Spain, and
Belgium have taken place in nursing homes, according to figures collected by academics at the London School of Economics. In many countries the true figures are only just coming to light, as unlike in
Ireland, deaths in care homes were not reported in national figures.
Behind the numbers are individual stories of tragedy.
Far from killing people who would have died anyway, the disease stole an average of 13 years of expected life from men, and 11 from women, according to a study of hundreds of victims by University of Glasgow researchers.
Many of their deaths were lonely. Infection risk kept loved ones away or behind panes of glass. The sheer numbers of people who were dying at once overwhelmed staff, and meant people did not always have access to palliative care such as sedatives, to ease their pain as they passed away.
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‘This whole corridor is dead’: Europe’s coronavirus care home disaster