The fallout from aged care outbreaks overseas continues.
The international organisation has released a report alleging that Belgian authorities “abandoned” thousands of elderly people who died in aged care homes during the coronavirus pandemic and did not seek hospital treatment for many who were infected in a violation of their human rights.
Despite only having a population of 11.5 million people, Belgium has reported over 536,000 confirmed virus cases and more than 14,400 deaths linked to COVID, with 61.3% of deaths between March and October recorded among aged care residents.
As we reported here in April, at the time it was estimated 20% of the country’s aged care residents and 14% of staff had become infected.
Amnesty’s report says authorities didn’t act fast enough to implement measures to protect residents and staff with many infected residents not transferred to hospital for treatment even though intensive care units never reached their 2,000-bed capacity.
“The results of our investigation allow us to affirm that (care homes) and their residents were abandoned by our authorities until this tragedy was publicly denounced and the worst of the first phase of the pandemic was over,” said Philippe Hensmans, the director of Amnesty International Belgium.
The group concludes that only 57% of serious cases in aged care homes were transferred to hospitals because of “a harmful interpretation of sorting guidelines.”
“Some older people have probably died prematurely as a result,” the report reads. “It took months before a circular explicitly stated that transfer to hospital was still possible, if it was in accordance with the patient’s interests and wishes, regardless of age.”
The report also notes that providers claimed they had not been trained on how to use PPE or provided with information about the virus with asymptomatic testing of staff not introduced until August.
Maggie De Block, the former health minister in charge during the early months of the pandemic last month said residents were cut off from hospital treatment.
“There has never been a message either from the federal government or from my regional colleagues saying that we should not hospitalize people who need it, or that we can refuse elderly or disabled people,” she told local media RTBF.
