Of the 2,494 deaths analysed, 131 were care workers - 86 female and 45 male.
But because many more social care workers are female, this equates to a death rate of 23.4 per 100,000 for men and 9.6 per 100,000 for women.
However, despite their close proximity to patients, healthcare workers, including doctors and nurses, had much lower death rates. This may be because they had better access to personal protective equipment (PPE) than other workers.
Yes I feel very sad that many of these deaths were totally preventable.Every statistic is a member of someone’s family or a loved one and a tragedy for them. Caused I feel by a very casual attitude to the virus initially, then mismanagement ever since.
We are lucky that we can self isolate but the poor patients and staff in care homes do not have that luxury and without PPE had no chance. It was the same in hospitals for the first few weeks. I know this from my daughter. In the hospital where she works over 200 people have died from the virus so far and one member of staff. He was a nursing assistant in his forties with young children. The ambulance men who brought my husband home from our local hospital 3 weeks ago weren’t even wearing masks!
Sometimes I just despair.
Hope Sharon, her colleagues and patients stay safe
Take care 2greys
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Sharon was infected through a lack of PPE, in turn I caught it from her despite taking all the recommended precautions. The other night she was in tears, because she blamed herself for the state it has left me in. She wanted to stay off work to care for me and I had to insist that it was not necessary, that she was needed more at the nursing home. So in reality I blame the lack of PPE in a nursing home for my infection, I could so easily have been seriously ill and died. I am sure that I am not alone, that other families have suffered after a carer has taken the virus home to their loved ones. Those families are not included in the statistics of course, covering up the full cost of lives.
I was offered support of a care worker when my husband was sent home but I refused as I was afraid of the risks of someone coming into the house. The respiratory nurse and physio have been in touch to visit but I’ve said I’d prefer it if they just rang but it’s a dilemma because we could really do with the support.
X
I fully share your analysis of the division between healthcare workers and care home workers and the woeful lack of elementary PPE provision, hence the spread of infection which is wider and deeper than it should be, 2G.
Can the basic divide between the two lie in technology and its uptake? In general hospitals and their huge size and scale of operation, there is frequently the prevalence of high tech and medical machinery, with its skilled operators, and the low touch of patient care by nurses and medics, whereas the opposite prevails in care homes, much smaller in scale and use of technology but with high touch in terms of residents care by nursing and other staff but with the use of relatively low tech machinery such as hoists, but low tech handling, with relatively fewer sophisticated diagnostic tech devices compared with hospitals.
Therefore , does low tech high touch depend and use more personal, contact and risk of spreading disease than within hospitals where there is more high tech but lower touching of patients? I am generalising here 2G but i want to draw attention to low skilled labour as more exploited and put at risk no matter the wonderfully humane work the social care element of our care homes. My heart goes out to Charon as a victim of sorts within all this. As if nursing homes and their lack of advanced technology didn't matter as much as hospitals with their highly trained and qualified personnel and expensive machinery. If you are old and ill you become somehow invisible to politicians and the state. It is not right and not fair. There you go, that's my humanist rant over, for now.
I completely agree with you! It's only now we can reflect on the situation and realize the shortcomings.
It’s very sad and worrying.
I read an article earlier and there have been an unusually high number of social workers who have died due to Covid19. My colleagues are probably luckier than others as we have an adequate supply of PPE. Not all local authorities are that fortunate. Nevertheless, I worry about my colleagues, my friends.
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