COVID-19: urgent measures needed in Spain's care homes - Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) International

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Dignified treatment and care

There was great uncertainty around COVID-19 due to the number of asymptomatic cases and the poor reliability of diagnostic tests. This often led to the implementation of strict isolation measures for residents, sometimes indiscriminately, and to the restriction or denial of last goodbyes, final visits from family, or movement within the care home. This had serious physical and psychosocial consequences for the elderly, who also did not receive any emotional support.  As a director of one of the care homes supported by MSF recalled:  

“In Eugenia's case, I was afraid that she would let herself die, and I began to take her out every day for a while, to see if she would regain her will to live. And she began to eat, she began to get better, until one day the primary care providers came just when we had her out, and they told me that I was being irresponsible and putting everyone in danger. I had no choice but to return her to her room, they made me feel so bad. She stopped eating again and, within a few days, she died. I’m not saying that she would not have died anyway, but I am certain that she did not want to go through this.”

A balance between isolation, quarantine and coexistence must be established in care homes and psychosocial support is essential – both for staff, residents and their families.

“The managers of these centres must ensure that physical isolation does not isolate residents socially, and that it prioritises their physical and mental health at all times. Confinement should not be done at the expense of the physical and cognitive faculties of the elderly, but according to them,” adds Di Lollo.

MSF also encountered a serious lack of protocols, clarity and implementation of measures for comfort treatment, sedation and palliative care for terminally ill people who had not been referred to hospitals, leaving people to die in avoidable suffering.  

"Family visits and last goodbyes should be allowed in people’s final moments, always with the appropriate protection measures. For this, it is essential that care homes have sufficient personal protective equipment, so that the elderly do not have to face such difficult times again, away from their loved ones,” says Di Lollo.

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COVID-19: urgent measures needed in Spain's care homes - Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) International
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