A devastating example of the terrible impact of COVID-19 in residential care.
Around half of all coronavirus deaths appear to be happening in care homes in some European countries, according to early figures gathered by academics at the London School of Economics (LSE).
Data from varying official sources shows that in Italy, Spain, France, Ireland and Belgium between 42% and 57% of deaths from the virus have been happening in aged care homes.
The researchers found the most accurate data was available in Ireland where, as of Saturday, 54% of deaths from coronavirus happened in aged care homes.
In Italy, a government survey that looked at deaths in 10% of the nations’ care homes has suggested 45% of all its COVID-19 deaths could be in residential care, while government data in France showed 45% of its 13,832 deaths in that country happened in aged care.
In Belgium, health ministry data puts this number at 42% of coronavirus deaths – in Spain, figures show a huge 57% of deaths between 8 March and 8 April were in aged care homes.
In Australia, these figures are comparatively lower. Aged care and home care residents have accounted for 10 of the country’s 61 coronavirus deaths – or 16% of the total number of deaths.
But the researchers say the study shows the need for resources to be equally distributed between hospitals and aged care.
“Care homes are places where physical distancing is almost impossible,” Adelina Comas-Herrera from the LSE’s care policy and evaluation centre and co-author of the study, said. “It’s like a perfect storm: a susceptible population, not being able to implement the measures and the staff are not well supported and trained enough. Many of the staff are care assistants with very little medical knowledge.”
Given that 16% of Australia’s deaths have been in aged care, is it unreasonable for the sector to not have a more even split of resources?
