Sir, – As part of its work, the Covid-19 Evaluation Panel is tasked with conducting a specific module examining how the pandemic was managed for older people living in the long-term residential care sector. There were failures in Ireland’s pandemic response in this sector. The panel states its work will be “open, iterative, and collaborative”.
Previous investigations, e.g. the Magdalene laundries and Mother and Baby Homes, published anonymised survivor (and family) accounts as part of their reports, providing an important contribution to the historical record.
While the Covid-19 Evaluation Panel proposes to hold listening sessions with residents of long-term residential care, and their families, these accounts will not be published.
People who want an anonymised record of their experience published are denied that option. We do not know whether a record will be kept of these testimonies.
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Age Action has been contacted by families who are troubled by this. Many felt their needs and concerns were not heard during Covid-19, and their preferences are not being considered now in the Panel’s methodology.
Some will prefer that their accounts be kept private, others will not: they should have the option of an anonymised record of their experience being in the public domain. Given failings in this sector, it is important that the voice of those affected is both heard, and seen to be heard.
Age Action calls on the Covid-19 Evaluation Panel to reconsider its approach to the testimonies of survivors, their families, and families whose loved ones died, alone, behind the window of a nursing home. – Yours, etc,
Camille Loftus,
Head of Advocacy & Public Affairs,
Age Action Ireland,
Dublin 2.
