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Nursing home owner describes 'heartbreak' of telling families they cannot visit residents who are dying

She said there have been a total of 13 confirmed positive cases in her facility and seven residents with Covid-19 have died.

THE OWNER OF A nursing home in Meath, where seven people with Covid-19 have died, has said it has been “heartbreaking” telling families they can not be with their loved ones in their final moments.

Lucy Flynn, of the Milbury Nursing Home in Navan, told RTÉ’s Claire Byrne Live last night that there have been 13 confirmed cases of the disease at her facility. She said her requests to have everyone living and working there tested for the coronavirus had been denied up until the weekend.

Flynn said one of the most difficult aspects of the outbreak has been the restrictions on visitors, even for those who are dying.

“When our residents are at end of life stage, most of them have decided – because we have an advanced care plan in place – that they did not want to be transferred so the decision had been by the resident to stay with us in the nursing home,” she said.

She said her staff are very well trained and competent to care for residents at this particular stage of their life

“It was heartbreaking telling the families that they could not come into the nursing home and be with their loved ones, particularly at the very end stage.

The residents’ families come to the windows, they telephone, they WhatsApp, there are video calls but it’s not the same as the human touch, sitting beside the bed, holding your mum or your dad’s hand for the final time. And this is truly heartbreaking.

“The families are very happy that we are there because for the resident the nursing home is their home – many of my residents have been with me a long time, say three or four years,” she said.

“They know us very well, they know the layout of the nursing home, they know the staff – they have their favourites – and that was reassuring for the families that at least some familiar faces were there to be with the resident with their loved one at the end.”

Flynn said after the first confirmed case in her nursing home in early March, 15 of her staff were advised to self isolate and a further 25 have left due to the “fear factor” around the disease.

There are coronavirus cases in around 30% of all nursing homes (around 200 centres), and half of all Covid-19 related deaths have been in nursing-home settings.

Speaking yesterday evening, Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan said it would not have made sense to have a strategy to prevent outbreaks of Covid-19 in nursing homes entirely.

“This is a very transmissible virus,” he said. “It’s more transmissible than the flu. It’s not realistic for us to think that we could keep this entirely out of nursing homes when we consider that fact.”

“And when we consider the fact that the populations in those setting is [older] and in which infection prevention controls is a challenge – it’s easier to transmit infection in these institutions that won’t be in the population in general – to build a strategy around preventing transmission of this infection into nursing homes and other environments, would not be realistic. It wouldn’t make sense.”

He said that efforts would be focused instead on preventing the spread from one person to another into nursing homes, or within a nursing home.

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    Mute Tony Stamper
    Favourite Tony Stamper
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    Sep 7th 2011, 12:13 PM

    Merkel – Germany and France wanted the Euro, even though economist after economist pointed out the massive flaws in it, the fatal contradictions, benefited massively from replacing the DM with a weaker currency, leading to a massive export boon for your state.

    Your country made it, ignored the economic reality, and now you aren’t willing to accept responsibility for the mess that was always inevitable. You are playing internal German political games to benefit yourself, and taking economic decisions at an EU level, to benefit Germany alone.

    European Union – My ass!

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    Mute Sean McGrath
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    Sep 7th 2011, 12:31 PM

    Tony, you are definitely right but its up to us to play the same game which we were trying to do but we got way to far ahead of ourselves, prices went too high on everything, wages went too high, everything went too high. I can remember national news celebrating that we were spending a billion a week a few yrs ago. Can’t blame ze Germans for that or the house prices….

    One thing we can take from this debacle is that the ECB is in Frankfurt for a reason and they are only looking out for Germany and France so we need to watch our own back from now on and play a smarter game.

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    Mute Neil
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    Sep 7th 2011, 3:21 PM

    @tony

    While there’s nothing more Irish than blaming others for our problems, it’s not really Germanys fault we are in the mess we are in. And I can understand German taxpayers not wanting to bailout countries like Ireland. The Finns hate that as well.

    Finland is a small country as well, and they have the euro, and they didn’t build up a huge governement expenditure on a property bubble.

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    Mute Gis Bayertz
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    Sep 7th 2011, 6:23 PM

    Spot on, Tony

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    Mute Sean O'Keeffe
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    Sep 7th 2011, 2:00 PM

    In the early eighteenth century, to develop its new colonies France issued a fiat currency under the guidance of the Scot, John Law. This currency was shortlived and imploded with the Mississippi bubble.
    While many people lost heavily, one canny Irishman, Richard Cantilion, pulled out of the project before its demise.
    Like Cantillon, Ireland would be well advised to consider what its best options are and not leave it too late.
    http://mises.org/daily/4709

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    Mute Sean O'Keeffe
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    Sep 7th 2011, 2:07 PM

    In the early Eighteenth century, to develop its colonies France issued a fiat currency under the guidance of Scot, John Law. This currency was shortlived and implode with the bust of the Mississippi bubble.
    Many people lost heavily. However, one canny Irishman, Richard Cantillon, who had been heavily involved withdrew before the project collapsed.
    Like Cantillon, Ireland would be well advised to see where his fiat currency project is going and not leave it too late to leave.
    http://mises.org/daily/4709

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