Belgium: in the face of COVID-19, care homes in the blind spot
"Amnesty International is publishing a new report entitled Les maisons de repos dans l’angle mort. Les droits humains des personnes âgées pendant la pandémie de COVID-19 en Belgique. This document reveals a whole series of human rights violations — including the rights to health, to life and to non-discrimination — suffered by residents of care homes and nursing homes (MR/MRS) in Belgium, in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, between March and October 2020, with disastrous consequences."
"The results of our investigation allow us to state that the MR/MRS and their residents were abandoned by our authorities, until this tragedy was publicly denounced and the worst of the first phase of the pandemic was over, explains Philippe Hensmans, director of the French-speaking Belgian section of Amnesty International."
"On 23 October 2020, of the some 10,600 people who had died in Belgium following a COVID-19 infection, 6,467 were residents of MR/MRS, representing 61.3% of all deaths attributed to COVID-19 in the Kingdom. This percentage rises to 63.3% if one considers specifically the period from 11 March (date of the first COVID-19 death in Belgium) to 21 June 2020. Amnesty International also stresses that the vast majority of these deaths occurred in the MR/MRS themselves, whereas almost all other COVID-19 deaths occurred in hospital."
"Care that was usually provided in hospitals had to be delivered inside the MR/MRS themselves, without the staffing resources and expertise available to hospital facilities. Restricted access for general practitioners to the MR/MRS made the situation even worse. This situation was amplified by the absence of precise, clear, adequate and lawful government guidelines on COVID-19 in the MR/MRS."
"Because of the lack of PPE and tests on the one hand, and an additional workload on the other, MR/MRS staff had to cope with situations of shortage, which led to neglect in some cases. Moreover, with visits suspended, the informal help of relatives, carers and volunteers suddenly stopped."
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https://www.amnesty.be
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