FARCICAL. DISGRACEFUL. SHAMEFUL
Lockdowns reduced mortality by just 0.2%...and how care homes are being run into the ground by your uncaring Government
By Mark Sharman
TO the millions of people who suffered untold damage from the Government’s lockdown policies, in terms of health, education, jobs and general well-being, how does it feel to learn that these policies were virtually useless?
To those whose relatives have died because they could not get diagnosis or treatment for cancer and heart disease, to those who were not allowed to visit dying loved ones, or attend their funerals, to those who were even denied the comfort of attending church, what are your emotions now?
The highly influential Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, USA, has published meta-analysis that show lockdowns in Europe and the US reduced Covid-19 mortality by only 0.2 per cent on average.
The report adds: “While this meta-analysis concludes that lockdowns have had little or no effect on public health, they have imposed enormous economic and social costs where they have been adopted. Consequently, containment policies are ill-founded and should be rejected as a pandemic policy tool.”
Make a note for next time.
TORMENT OF A HEALTH WORKER
“We have no respect for old age”
MARLITA CRAUSE is just one health worker for whom lockdowns and vaccine mandates wreaked havoc with her life. She could have given in but decided: “I’m not a victim. I’m going to fight.”
Marlita was a dentist in Nottingham, running her own practice, but decided to become a care worker “out of compassion”. She toiled in care homes and as a live-in carer in private houses, sometimes combining the two.
That meant 12 hours a day in the care homes for the minimum wage, followed by night shifts with the home clients. Many were suffering dementia. “They needed toileting, changing, everything.”
Staff shortages increased the pressure and Marlita was already “tired and emotionally drained” through being on duty 24/7. Then lockdown came.
“As care workers we weren’t allowed to go out, we couldn’t take breaks away, we were not allowed to see family and friends. There was no support bubble. Life was very hard.”
She says staff shortages and under-funding make it “heart wrenching” to work with the elderly: “We just don’t respect old age in this country.”
Since Marlita’s experience, about 40,000 dedicated and compassionate care home workers like her have been ‘rewarded’ with dismissal for refusing compulsory Covid-19 vaccines, many after years of service. It has made the situation so much worse.
In the meantime, Marlita has returned to her life as a dentist – but not before she had to re-qualify for six months because she had been off-register, despite 22 years of previous experience.
Now, unless the mandatory vaccine rule is permanently removed, she faces exclusion from both careers because she is vaccine-free.
She says: “As a dentist I have never coerced or forced any patient to take any treatment. I am just asking for the same respect.”
“Carers are yesterday’s heroes, today’s unemployed. Are the elderly yesterday’s workers, tomorrow’s waste?”
Marlita’s personal view on care homes
“THEY were functional and strong once, had clear minds, interests, raised families, worked hard all their lives, paid their taxes, paid into their pensions, all in the hope that one day, when they became frail and couldn’t look after themselves any more, they would be cared for. Isn’t that what we all hope for? Because let’s face it, we’re all going to get there.
When I decided to give up dentistry to become a carer in 2018, it was under the impression that the ill, suffering, vulnerable and elderly are valuable, deserving to be cared for with love, dignity, kindness and respect and that care homes are happy places where the residents sit and chat happily and are looked after.
I had no idea what I was going to find.
I certainly wasn’t prepared for the full-on 12-hour day and night shifts at minimum wage that carers work...tirelessly serving, loving, caring, doing their best. I wasn’t prepared for the fact that the majority of shifts are short on staff, so the ones working have to rush, not complaining; they just work extra hard and long, trying to perform more people’s jobs, turning up with toiletries and wipes for the residents that they bought out of their own minimum wage, because the basics aren’t funded for.
I’m trying to formulate as I go because, revisiting my memories, I can’t fathom how on earth Government funding can measure the basic needs of an elderly, incontinent person on the weight of a nappy, weighed when it had been worn throughout one whole day, to decide how many pads should be allowed.
How can it be more important that the paperwork for each individual resident is written up correctly to make sure the carer in charge is not liable to prosecution if anything goes wrong, than that residents receive the care and time they deserve?
Government must step up – start valuing your people
How can the basics of bathroom floors that don’t leak urine when you stand on them, enough clean bedding, enough time and staff to perform the manual handling of those that are bedridden to prevent them getting bedsores, enough wipes to clean them, or even just put them to bed, get them up, toilet them and change their clothes, help feed them or even just sit and talk to them, giving the loving attention that they all crave because they’re lonely – how can this be measured in money?
If care homes are for valuing the elderly and carers are the ones providing the love and care, why are they not valued or appreciated? Why, when care homes were already struggling before the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 with lack of funding, lack of support, staff shortage and underpaid carers, were 40 000 carers sacked in November 2021, when they were the only “family” the elderly were allowed to see during lockdowns?
Nearly half of care homes have closed their doors to new residents and two-thirds of home care providers are turning down requests for home care, due to staff shortages caused by Covid and the mandatory vaccine, according to the National Care Forum.
What will become of our elderly if there are no carers? Carers are yesterday’s heroes, today’s unemployed. Are the elderly yesterday’s workers, tomorrow’s waste? Really? The British Government need to step up. Start valuing your people.”
Question of the Day
Why are so many people still wearing masks, even outside? Did you know that masks allow five microns through and the virus is only 0.125 microns? It is like trying to keep soup in a colander.