Is My Mum a Prisoner in Aged Care? (May as Well Be!)
Channel: Daily Insight
Date: 07/01/2022

Is my Mum a prisoner in aged care? With all these ongoing lock downs due to staff testing positive, she may as well be.

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Backstory
In the late 1940s around age 7 or 8, my Mum became very sick. She was hospitalised for months at a time. At first, she was in the same town as her family, so they could visit her regularly, but later she had to be transported to Brisbane for expert treatment. As my Grandmother was a widow and had five other children to take care of, she could rarely visit my Mum. My grandfather had died young. He used to work at an abattoir, but was kicked in the head by a steer. A few days later, he dropped dead playing cricket. Perhaps that’s why I have an aversion to meat. My Mum would go for many weeks without seeing any of her family, isolated within the bleak, sterile environment of the hospital.

Bans and Lockdowns
A nursing home placement came up a few weeks later in early November 2021. The nursing home wouldn’t allow me to enter because I wasn’t vaccinated against the flu, but I was able to see my Mum in the garden. On November 5th, the government abandoned that direction and I was allowed to freely visit my Mum (apparently the regular flu was no longer an issue). On December 17th, I was again banned from going inside the nursing home, because a new government direction stated that only people vaccinated against COVID could enter aged care facilities. I was promised by the staff though, that I would be able to continue seeing my Mum in the garden. I went to visit her on December 20th, but then the staff told me that I wasn’t even allowed on the grounds, and asked me to leave. Apparently there was a new direction. I phoned the manager and he worked something out for me. I could go collect my Mum in a wheelchair and wheel her off the grounds, and that would be fine. So on December 23rd, I met with my Mum for the last time. I wheeled her to the nearby park, and we had a great chat. She saw her grandchildren and met with her unvaccinated friends who I had called prior. She was happy to be out in the fresh air and sunshine. December 27th – LOCKDOWN! A staff member tested positive for COVID! No visitors were allowed regardless of vaccination status.

Prison Life and Mental Health Crisis
My Mum is now a prisoner. She’s not allowed to leave her room, and nobody’s allowed to go in to see her (except for medical professionals). She’s allowed to phone out and she had been calling me fairly regularly up until recently, but then the phones started to go dead. A couple of days ago, she tried to call be three times, but I could only hear static. I contacted the manager of the facility and he told me that so many people are trying to call in and out, that all the cordless phones are being overused and running out of power. He arranged for me to have a Zoom session with my Mum on one of the nurses iPads. I spoke with my Mum and she’s really been struggling mentally. She’s been having panic attacks. She’s been having extreme anxiety. She can’t leave her room. She can barely talk to the staff, because when they enter her room, they are covered head to toe in hazmat suits or whatever. They simply don’t have the time to stay and chat like they used to.

Is Escape a Solution?
I’ve spoken with my Mum’s friends and we’ve considered breaking her out (tongue in cheek). Now of course, she isn’t legally a prisoner. If she really insisted on leaving, and I vouched for her, they couldn’t not let her leave. But if she did leave, she wouldn’t be allowed back (at least, not while the facility is in lockdown). But realistically, we honestly don’t have anywhere to keep her. She needs round the clock care, something which I can’t provide. I’ve got my own children to look after, and my wife works very odd hours. I’m trying my best to keep in contact with my Mum and keep her spirits up, but realistically, if the rules don’t change, my Mum will be in permanent lockdown. There will always be a close contact or a case that pops up keeping the lockdown going. Remembering, all of these government rules are designed to “keep our senior citizens safe”, but in the process, by locking them in their rooms 24 hours a day, they’re completely destroying them mentally. Sure, they don’t have COVID, but at what cost? No visitors. No leaving your room. No hugs from loved ones. No hugs full stop. Our COVID rules were designed to protect our loved ones from illness. But in the end, we’ve substituted physical illness with mental illness instead. In prison, inmates are allowed to go out of their cells and exercise. Our locked-down aged care residents can’t even do that.

MUSIC
Heartbreaking by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100208
Artist: http://incompetech.com/

#lockdown #agedcare #prisonlife