April 15, 2020 - 1651 views
Aberconwy's Assembly Member Janet Finch-Saunders, Shadow Minister for Social Care and the Welsh Conservative's Older People's Champion, has questioned the situation of COVID-19 in Welsh residential care homes.
In a question submitted at the end of last month Mrs Finch-Saunders asked: "Will the Minister make a statement on how many residents have died as a result of coronavirus in care homes?"
In his reply, the Minister for Health and Social Services, Vaughan Gething AM, said: "I do not currently have information on the number of care home residents who have contracted COVID-19 and have subsequently died or on the place of death.”
Her concern comes as a host of UK charities aledge that older people risk being “airbrushed” out of coronavirus figures in the UK.
Commenting on the situation, Janet said: “Whilst I thank the Welsh Social Services Minister for his reply to my question, I am deeply concerned during this period of great challenge to our social care sector.
“As the Welsh Conservative's Older People’s champion, I urge the Welsh Social Services Minister to provide a regular update on deaths in the Welsh care system.
“The mark of a civilised society is how it cares for its oldest citizens. If we are to understand the impact of COVID-19 on our care homes in its entirety, we cannot allow official statistic updates to ignore those who are most vulnerable to this disease."
According to the Care Inspectorate in Wales today, 81 adult care homes in Wales have had one or more confirmed cases of coronavirus.
Yesterday Mr. Gethin said he would make the number of tests been carried out at care homes available for scrutiny and confirmed that 128 tests had been undertaken in past week.
