Care homes should be safe havens, allowing elderly people to experience and enjoy life in comfort and safety.
Most homes achieve this. Certainly my home, Sunrise Cardiff, does, but all of them throughout Britain have suffered a cruel year.
They have seldom been out of the news, almost always for the wrong reason.
It began in the first months of the coronavirus outbreak.
Panic over the impending danger led to sick, elderly hospital patients being off-loaded to care homes that had no choice but to take them in
The result was devastating. Hundreds of homes, far from being safe havens, were death traps, with some losing dozens of residents. Relatives, unable to be with them, were shocked and distraught.
Carers, no matter how brave, were helpless. They had to cope with danger to themselves and their families, and the stress and frustration, enduring inadequate personal protective equipment for too long as they looked after their residents.
It became ‘the ‘home care scandal’, with accusations that vulnerable elderly people had been forgotten by the government.
As the months passed, the anguish and heartbreak of families unable to see and comfort elderly relatives especially those suffering from dementia and Alzheimer's, heightened.
The families were helpless, with just a pathetic wave from a window to a tearful parent or grandparent. Even worse, they could not arrange funerals as we knew them before the pandemic.
Today, in Sunrise, we have just restarted visiting, with one nominated person allowed, in a safely sealed room.
It is better than for a long time as now we don’t need masks so we can hear clearly, and we at last have more cheerful things to talk about.
Hopes that the chancellor would set aside extra billions towards restructuring social services, especially for the elderly, were dashed. Not a penny was promised.
What happened about the Prime Minister’s pledge, made a little over a year ago, to solve the problem ‘once and for all’? Not a word.
He and this government have a duty, an obligation, to ensure that the elderly are never put in danger again, are better cared for and can live comfortable, safe lives.
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