Sorry, but for me this is the opposite from heartwarming. It makes me feel more hopeless then ever

[JKRowlingIsMyQueen]

I'm referring to what's going on in this photo. We know the vast majority of young and healthy people are unaffected by the virus and that most of deaths were old people in care homes.

So with all these lockdowns, restrictions and ruining the economy we are prolonging their life, right? Only for them to spend the end of their life alone with no in person contact with their family and friends.

Elderly people should have a choice whether they want to hang out in the same room with their own spouse for gods sake. This is elder abuse imo.

Now drag me for being "selfish" all you want but this is not okay.

[quote Unsure33]@ceto

It is a horrible situation , so what would you like to see happen that you think is practical ? Are visits with masks etc better than nothing ? Or should someone provide clear masks so they can see all of your face ? And gloves ?[/quote]
Unfortunately I don't think there is really any practical answer. A visit to my mother would only be workable if I could sit very close to her and raise my voice, and a mask probably wouldn't provide enough protection. I fully recognise that the home can't risk infection being brought in. If it was in any way practical for her to come to stay with me I'd go for it, but it just isn't.

Completely agree
My 85 yr old mother is very incapacitated with a terminal condition. The plan always was to find her a nice care home when we got to this point . With things as they are though I just can't do it to her . She wouldn't cope with phones or FaceTime and wouldn't understand why we had basically given her away to other people ( however nice the home might be )
So we will have to muddle through at home

My friend was admitted to residential care at the start of lockdown. It's absolutely the right decision and he's happy. But trying to sort out day to day stuff had been very difficult. He needs a current account, but isn't allowed out of the home to open one. His mental health is definitely suffering because I can't take him out.

@loutypips

What about the elderly's right to life? Shouldn't they be protected at all costs rather than put at risk of a premature and possibly painful death? Or, do you want to kill off all the old people?

Don't be ridiculous. Nobody is saying that the elderly have No right to life. You are twisting things to suit yourself. What we are sayingbis that everyone including the elderly should have a choice. Who are you to decide that they should spend what could be thier last months alone and separated from thier lived ones? Seeing nobody except when carers come into thier room with food or meds or to do essential care a few times a day? Can you imagine sitting alone day after interminably long day for months? Wondering where your family are, why have they abandoned you? Prolonging life at all costs is not the best policy. Try working in nursing for over 20 years and seeing people beg to be allowed to die, watching people waste away from starvation as they refuse to eat of drink because they have severe dementia and don't know who you are and think you are poisoning them, watching peolle scream all day because thats the only way they can express themselve, thier fear, confusion or pain. Then tell me life should be prolonged no matter what.

I totally agree with you

@Buddywoo

I am old (74) and my husband is 76. I have a couple of underlying conditions but in daily life am healthy. We have thought about this very carefully and have decided we are prepared to take the risk rather than lock ourselves away. One of our grandsons stays overnight with us every week. He is a weekly boarder and it helps him get through the week to have a night with us. This will not change. We are also driving to Spain in a couple of weeks as we have a holiday home there and haven't been for a year. We will drive through France in one day so we don't have to quarantine. Some may think we are stupid but for us life isn't worth living unless we can see family. Of course if that becomes forbidden we will abide by it. We have thought of all the possible consequences and have decided to be sensible but live our lives without fear.

This is lovely to hear

What about the elderly's right to life? Shouldn't they be protected at all costs?

Well what about their quality of life? And what if the cost of protecting them in this way causes more suffering?

It's not as simple as that for the elderly because realistically many of them might never live to see normality again. So you're depriving them of love and comfort and they will die a lonely death of some other cause anyway.

But not all elderly want to die, just so they can see family. Some want to be around a long as they can!
And if they die of something else, hopefully that will be as peacefully and painlessly as possible.

We must remember that our need to see elderly loved ones must not override their chance of being safe and protected from this virus.

It's heartbreaking. I don't know what the solution is. My granny in law had Covid and lived in a nursing home. The Care Home allowed I've of her daughter's in to bed with her on the night before she died. Full PPE. Couple of weeks later the daughter was hospitalised with Covid. She was very ill. Her husband also caught it, but less affected. She wanted to be with her mother when she died, but almost lost her own life because she was. Funeral postponed for weeks and weeks. All very sad.

Sorry for typos, I'm on phone. Her daughter wasn't in bed with her, in meant to say 'be' with her!

It's not about my right to see my elderly mother. It's about her desire to see me, and her other offspring, and her many grandchildren.

She doesn't want to die. But she certainly will if she has to spend the rest of her life feeling isolated and lonely.

@Fluffalo

What about the elderly's right to life? Shouldn't they be protected at all costs?

Well what about their quality of life? And what if the cost of protecting them in this way causes more suffering?

So we should just let them die in order to make ourselves feel that we have looked after them and loved them? Ridiculous.

Thankyou @CharityDingle

@ktp100

The most important things are keeping our vulnerable alive and keeping the NHS going.

Our elderly lived through a war. They know this to be way more comfortable than that!

My GPs are in their 90's. No way would I put them at risk by visiting, especially with him being back at school.

It isn't up to the individual to decide what risks they wish to take, I'm afraid. The Rate is over 1, so for every person who gets it they pass it on to at least 1 other person. Of course our elderly want to see family, we want to see them too, but it's not worth DYING over, nor causing the death of Edith in the flat next door.

I'm afraid we are being a nation of whiners over this and it will drag out longer because of people's pig headedness.

You would be correct if we lived in a world where covid is the only thing old and vulnerable people can die of, but it's not.

The people in care homes are going to statistically die in a few years. There is no such thing as "keeping them alive", we can only prolong their life, but isolation kills elderly as well.

It is very much possible that more elderly in care homes are going to due do to isolation than the amount that would die of covid if they were allowed visits.

So we should just let them die in order to make ourselves feel that we have looked after them and loved them? Ridiculous

No, it's allowing them the choice whether they would like to see family members, not to be dictated to because the government has zero effective controls in place to track the virus. It doesn't just relate to care homes anyway, a good friend died in discomfort at home because she wanted to be around her loved ones in her last weeks, and not restricted to one visitor for an hour a day.

We are not in a lockdown area and yet my Dad’s care home have just advised they are no longer allowing visitors again, even outside.
My Dad has advanced Alzheimer’s and I don’t think is aware now if we visit or not but it is awful for my mum as she can’t see her own husband of 53 years. It is damaging for the families as much as the ones in the home. I have no idea when I’ll be able to see my Dad again🙁

And this is what we are destroying the country for.

Horrible. My 92 year old mum lives at home with carers coming in. We've gone out as usual, family and friends visit as normal. She has no intention of missing out on life in what could be the last years of her life. My aunt on the other hand has just died in a care home. We were unable to visit.

@loutypips "We must remember that our need to see elderly loved ones must not override their chance of being safe and protected from this virus."

No, but their choice should.

So we should just let them die in order to make ourselves feel that we have looked after them and loved them? Ridiculous.
Don't be silly.
It's about quality not quantity if life and it's about choices. If i get to 70 or 80 years old I would like to think I have lived long enough to make my own choices about what I do and who I see. Its not up to anyone else to decide for me that 18months of misery is better than 6 months of happiness.
And again you are missing the point. Covid has a 99.7% recover rate even the elderly do not automatically die from it. A 91yr old was in the papers recently as recovering completely from having it as did someone I know's dad who is in thier 80s.

It's not an automatic death sentence no matter what your age, stop acting like it is.

There would be way to mitigate risk of visiting... Regular testing for key visitors, ensuring precautions are taken for visits. But stopping all visits is draconian. Yes, there’s a risk of infection, but surely that needs to be balanced against a life devoid of contact with your loved ones when you are in your last days.

So i cant go in my parents garden or house and have a cuppa, they are 84 and 89 but i can take them to the pub for lunch and the supermarket for their shopping and the Range for their random shopping.

So i do 🤷‍♀️

It’s all shit, if it were me, I would rather see my family and risk COVID than guarantee being alive a wee bit longer.

When I worked in a residential home, there was one very senile lady whose relatives would come in, drop off the kids, and leave them there for the day without getting any kind of permission. Then after they had gone, we would have a wave of nits (moving and handling meant we all had to have our heads very close to the residents).

You cannot rely on everyone to be careful and cautious. The people having illegal house parties have relatives in homes as well.

I completely agree a balance has to be struck, but getting rid of all protective measures would be insanity.

We must remember that our need to see elderly loved ones must not override their chance of being safe and protected from this virus

The difficulty is that it’s not just the individual’s life, but every else in the care home, as infection will likely spread, so there’s an ethical conundrum. Even so, on balance stopping visits altogether is too much.

@JKRowlingIsMyQueen great username btw!
But not if they are in a carehome where the other residents can be infected.