DM's Care Home have stopped visits again - and in a low incidence area

[Baaaahhhhh]

So sad. She is already depressed and lonely. They have been allowing one visit per week, per resident, which was pretty restrictive anyway, as it meant each of her children only see her once a month, and no room for friends to visit, and they had only just started to allow entertainment back in.

We are in an area of stable infections, of between 20-30/100,000. Just feel so sorry for the residents.

I wanted to send some flowers to my family in their home, something nice to tell them I was thinking of them even though I can’t visit (one visitor at a time means this isn’t feasible at the moment). But I was told that flowers are unacceptable gifts. Flowers!? How are they going to pass on anything? Do they cough? Sneeze? I was so baffled I actually couldn’t speak

I have a relative in her early twenties with multiple LDs - she’s not been allowed a single visit since March . She’s hugely struggling now, not sleeping, not eating well - her parents aren’t even allowed to come the window or drop stuff at the door, relative and her parents were given paperwork in form of risk assessments saying if they tried to visit they might kill her, the staff and other service users .

It is absolutely awful - even my grandmother 90 is allowed one outdoor visitor and not being frightened in such a way .

I work closely with care homes. The managers I have spoken to are stuck between a rock and a hard place. Some of the homes were massively hit by Covid and had to support people to have awful, uncomfortable deaths with a reduction in regular staff as they were off. One manager ended up in ICU. If a manager decides to open to visits and there's an outbreak because of that they'll be torn apart by the media and relatives and quite possibly CQC.

You see from all the threads on here how so many people are ignoring the rules or just don't understand them (like not isolating with a temp or cough because they think it's a cold). The public (so visitors) are not trusted to do the right thing.

I'm a registered manager in a large nursing home, I really do feel stuck between a rock and a hard place.
I want nothing more than for my residents to be able to see their loved ones but with that comes huge risks.
I'm not sure what the answer is I just wish this could all go away after all many of my residents haven't got time on their side

DM was in tears this morning, she says she can't take any more, she just wants to die. It's brutal.