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Lockdown killed my mother – and thousands like her
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Michael Ejercito
Jul 2, 2021, 11:06:41 AM7/2/21
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http://archive.vn/4LkrD
Lockdown killed my mother – and thousands like her
From magazine issue: 3 July 2021
Lockdown killed my mother – and thousands like her
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I barely recognised my mother when I saw her in the hospital bed the
night she died. It had been many months since we were last able to meet,
when she was still a force of nature. Now there was almost nothing left
of her. The death certificate records that Elizabeth Carol Chamberlain
died of dementia and kidney disease aged 88. But it was lockdown that
really killed her.
For my parents, like so many people of their generation living out their
later years in care homes, lockdown offered not protection but
imprisonment. ‘It’s cruel,’ Mam would say, over and over again, in the
painful and awkward phone calls that we shared over the last year or so.
‘Just cruel.’ ‘What have you been doing?’ ‘Nothing. Staring at the walls.’
Both my parents had been in and out of care homes and hospital over the
past year. My mother had been sliding into dementia for a while, though
she could be lucid and sharp as a tack when the mood took her. My
father, Les, had recently suffered a stroke, so had been taken into
hospital from the care home where they lived.
Gloucestershire’s hospitals would not allow visitors in, and the care
home would not allow residents out, so they were separated once more.
But after 63 years of marriage, this would be the last time. Convinced
that they would never see each other again, Mam had no wish to go on.
She decided to stop eating or drinking and died four days later.
Her funeral last month was a sad and strange affair. Everyone had to
wear a mask unless they were standing to speak. Singing wasn’t allowed.
We all had to be socially distanced. There were about a dozen people in
attendance. In normal times, there would have been many more, because
Mam touched the lives of so many people.
She had left a very clear set of instructions for a simple funeral and
had asked for three hymns, including ‘Away in a Manger’, because it was
a favourite and she was called Carol. As the curtains started to close
around the coffin and the first bars of ‘The Lord Is My Shepherd’ were
played on the organ, my dad said ‘To hell with this’, and we sang
anyway. Just him and me.
Both my parents felt that throughout the pandemic, the balance of risks
had been wrong. They could not understand why the focus on avoiding
Covid-19 now trumped everything else. As care-home residents, they felt
that they had become collateral damage in an increasingly politicised
debate. More than anything, they felt forgotten.
Like thousands of other care-home residents, they were asked to sign Do
Not Resuscitate letters at the outset. And like thousands of others,
they agreed, because they didn’t want to be a bother to anyone. Those
letters — and the decision to decant hundreds of untested pensioners out
of their hospital beds and back into care homes — showed just how
expendable they and their generation were considered to be.
Those who survived were shut away, denied visitors, left to believe that
they had been abandoned. Many, like my mother, became profoundly
depressed. They died in their thousands, often alone. My mother was
right about how cruel this was.
If my parents needed to leave the care home for treatment in hospital,
they were forced on their return to isolate for two weeks in their
rooms. On one occasion, this solitary confinement nearly did for Dad
too. After being sent to hospital for tests, he was placed back into a
room on his own away from Mam. Over the next few days, he complained
repeatedly about being in pain, but attempts to get a GP to enter the
care home were rebuffed. I don’t know how the phone triage system works
but I’d guess that an 87-year-old in a care home doesn’t go to the front
of the queue. By the time he was rushed into hospital, he was badly
dehydrated and his kidneys were failing. The staff were wonderful and he
pulled through, but it was hard not to feel that his life was not
regarded as a priority.
Once, frustrated and furious, Mam broke out of the home. She toddled off
down the street just as the schools emptied out. She would have loved
seeing all the children, who would have been the same age as those she
used to teach. But her reward was to be placed back into isolation ‘to
protect the other residents’. She pointed out to me that the staff still
moved back and forth between the home and the outside world without
restriction.
Sometimes she would call, distressed, demanding that I drive down from
Scotland to rescue them. I did, once, dodging through the back roads of
north Wales on a lockdown--evading mission to spring them from the home
they regarded as their prison. It was the only time they had been
allowed into the outside world since the start of the lockdown, other
than for medical attention. We stopped by the promenade so they could
see the sea. I wondered then whether it might be the last time.
Then it was all over. They told me it was peaceful in the end. Inside
Dad’s hospital room, behind the closed door and with the blinds drawn, I
broke the news to him about Mam and we hugged, because that’s what
humans do. I don’t really know whether it was permitted: there were so
many restrictions. A couple of days later I spoke to the medical
examiner determining the cause of death. ‘I think I’ll say dementia,’ he
said. ‘Well, OK, but it was lockdown really,’ I said. ‘She was killed by
lockdown.’ He sighed and said they heard that a lot now.
On Father’s Day, I spoke to my dad. ‘Are you doing anything nice?’ I
asked. ‘Well, no, I’m still in quarantine after the funeral.’
‘Quarantine? But the funeral was nearly two weeks ago.’ Since the
funeral, Dad has been confined to a room barely 12ft by 12ft, without
being allowed out for exercise or anything else. Like the other
residents, he has been double-vaccinated. ‘They say they’ll let me out
tomorrow. They said those were the rules.’
WRITTEN BY
Gethin Chamberlain
--
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG.
https://www.avg.com
Lockdown killed my mother – and thousands like her
From magazine issue: 3 July 2021
Lockdown killed my mother – and thousands like her
Text settings
Comments
Share
I barely recognised my mother when I saw her in the hospital bed the
night she died. It had been many months since we were last able to meet,
when she was still a force of nature. Now there was almost nothing left
of her. The death certificate records that Elizabeth Carol Chamberlain
died of dementia and kidney disease aged 88. But it was lockdown that
really killed her.
For my parents, like so many people of their generation living out their
later years in care homes, lockdown offered not protection but
imprisonment. ‘It’s cruel,’ Mam would say, over and over again, in the
painful and awkward phone calls that we shared over the last year or so.
‘Just cruel.’ ‘What have you been doing?’ ‘Nothing. Staring at the walls.’
Both my parents had been in and out of care homes and hospital over the
past year. My mother had been sliding into dementia for a while, though
she could be lucid and sharp as a tack when the mood took her. My
father, Les, had recently suffered a stroke, so had been taken into
hospital from the care home where they lived.
Gloucestershire’s hospitals would not allow visitors in, and the care
home would not allow residents out, so they were separated once more.
But after 63 years of marriage, this would be the last time. Convinced
that they would never see each other again, Mam had no wish to go on.
She decided to stop eating or drinking and died four days later.
Her funeral last month was a sad and strange affair. Everyone had to
wear a mask unless they were standing to speak. Singing wasn’t allowed.
We all had to be socially distanced. There were about a dozen people in
attendance. In normal times, there would have been many more, because
Mam touched the lives of so many people.
She had left a very clear set of instructions for a simple funeral and
had asked for three hymns, including ‘Away in a Manger’, because it was
a favourite and she was called Carol. As the curtains started to close
around the coffin and the first bars of ‘The Lord Is My Shepherd’ were
played on the organ, my dad said ‘To hell with this’, and we sang
anyway. Just him and me.
Both my parents felt that throughout the pandemic, the balance of risks
had been wrong. They could not understand why the focus on avoiding
Covid-19 now trumped everything else. As care-home residents, they felt
that they had become collateral damage in an increasingly politicised
debate. More than anything, they felt forgotten.
Like thousands of other care-home residents, they were asked to sign Do
Not Resuscitate letters at the outset. And like thousands of others,
they agreed, because they didn’t want to be a bother to anyone. Those
letters — and the decision to decant hundreds of untested pensioners out
of their hospital beds and back into care homes — showed just how
expendable they and their generation were considered to be.
Those who survived were shut away, denied visitors, left to believe that
they had been abandoned. Many, like my mother, became profoundly
depressed. They died in their thousands, often alone. My mother was
right about how cruel this was.
If my parents needed to leave the care home for treatment in hospital,
they were forced on their return to isolate for two weeks in their
rooms. On one occasion, this solitary confinement nearly did for Dad
too. After being sent to hospital for tests, he was placed back into a
room on his own away from Mam. Over the next few days, he complained
repeatedly about being in pain, but attempts to get a GP to enter the
care home were rebuffed. I don’t know how the phone triage system works
but I’d guess that an 87-year-old in a care home doesn’t go to the front
of the queue. By the time he was rushed into hospital, he was badly
dehydrated and his kidneys were failing. The staff were wonderful and he
pulled through, but it was hard not to feel that his life was not
regarded as a priority.
Once, frustrated and furious, Mam broke out of the home. She toddled off
down the street just as the schools emptied out. She would have loved
seeing all the children, who would have been the same age as those she
used to teach. But her reward was to be placed back into isolation ‘to
protect the other residents’. She pointed out to me that the staff still
moved back and forth between the home and the outside world without
restriction.
Sometimes she would call, distressed, demanding that I drive down from
Scotland to rescue them. I did, once, dodging through the back roads of
north Wales on a lockdown--evading mission to spring them from the home
they regarded as their prison. It was the only time they had been
allowed into the outside world since the start of the lockdown, other
than for medical attention. We stopped by the promenade so they could
see the sea. I wondered then whether it might be the last time.
Then it was all over. They told me it was peaceful in the end. Inside
Dad’s hospital room, behind the closed door and with the blinds drawn, I
broke the news to him about Mam and we hugged, because that’s what
humans do. I don’t really know whether it was permitted: there were so
many restrictions. A couple of days later I spoke to the medical
examiner determining the cause of death. ‘I think I’ll say dementia,’ he
said. ‘Well, OK, but it was lockdown really,’ I said. ‘She was killed by
lockdown.’ He sighed and said they heard that a lot now.
On Father’s Day, I spoke to my dad. ‘Are you doing anything nice?’ I
asked. ‘Well, no, I’m still in quarantine after the funeral.’
‘Quarantine? But the funeral was nearly two weeks ago.’ Since the
funeral, Dad has been confined to a room barely 12ft by 12ft, without
being allowed out for exercise or anything else. Like the other
residents, he has been double-vaccinated. ‘They say they’ll let me out
tomorrow. They said those were the rules.’
WRITTEN BY
Gethin Chamberlain
--
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG.
https://www.avg.com
HeartDoc Andrew
Jul 2, 2021, 11:47:22 AM7/2/21
to
the U.K. & elsewhere is by rapidly ( http://bit.ly/RapidTestCOVID-19 )
finding out at any given moment, including even while on-line, who
among us are unwittingly contagious (i.e pre-symptomatic or
asymptomatic) in order to http://bit.ly/convince_it_forward (John
15:12) for them to call their doctor and self-quarantine per their
doctor in hopes of stopping this pandemic. Thus, we're hoping for the
best while preparing for the worse-case scenario of the Alpha lineage
mutations and others like the Gamma, Beta, Epsilon, Iota, & Delta
lineage mutations combining to form hybrids that render current COVID
vaccines no longer effective.
Indeed, I am wonderfully hungry ( http://bit.ly/RapidTestCOVID-19 )
and hope you, Michael, also have a healthy appetite too.
So how are you ?
...because we mindfully choose to openly care with our heart,
HeartDoc Andrew <><
--
Andrew B. Chung, MD/PhD
Cardiologist with an http://bit.ly/EternalMedicalLicense
2016 & upwards non-partisan candidate for U.S. President:
http://bit.ly/WonderfullyHungryPresident
and author of the 2PD-OMER Approach:
http://bit.ly/HeartDocAndrewCare
which is the only **healthy** cure for the U.S. healthcare crisis
Michael Ejercito
Jul 3, 2021, 8:36:50 AM7/3/21
to
Michael
HeartDoc Andrew
Jul 3, 2021, 11:28:53 AM7/3/21
to
MichaelE wrote:
> I am wonderfully hungry!
While wonderfully hungry in the Holy Spirit, Who causes (Deuteronomy
8:3) us to hunger, I note that you, Michael, not only don't have
COVID-19 but are rapture (Luke 17:37) ready and pray (2 Chronicles
7:14) that our Everlasting (Isaiah 9:6) Father in Heaven continues to
give us "much more" (Luke 11:13) Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) so
that we'd have much more of His Help to always say/write that we're
"wonderfully hungry" in **all** ways including especially caring to
http://bit.ly/convince_it_forward (John 15:12 as shown by
http://bit.ly/RapidTestCOVID-19 ) with all glory (
http://bit.ly/Psalm117_ ) to GOD (aka HaShem, Elohim, Abba, DEO), in
the name (John 16:23) of LORD Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Amen.
Laus DEO !
Suggested further reading:
https://groups.google.com/g/sci.med.cardiology/c/5EWtT4CwCOg/m/QjNF57xRBAAJ
Shorter link:
http://bit.ly/StatCOVID-19Test
Be hungrier, which really is wonderfully healthier especially for
diabetics and other heart disease patients:
http://bit.ly/HeartDocAndrewToutsHunger (Luke 6:21a) with all glory to
GOD, Who causes us to hunger (Deuteronomy 8:3) when He blesses us
right now (Luke 6:21a) thereby removing the http://HeartMDPhD.com/VAT
from around the heart
...because we mindfully choose to openly care with our heart,
HeartDoc Andrew <><
While wonderfully hungry in the Holy Spirit, Who causes (Deuteronomy
8:3) us to hunger, I note that you, Michael, not only don't have
COVID-19 but are rapture (Luke 17:37) ready and pray (2 Chronicles
7:14) that our Everlasting (Isaiah 9:6) Father in Heaven continues to
give us "much more" (Luke 11:13) Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) so
that we'd have much more of His Help to always say/write that we're
"wonderfully hungry" in **all** ways including especially caring to
http://bit.ly/convince_it_forward (John 15:12 as shown by
http://bit.ly/RapidTestCOVID-19 ) with all glory (
http://bit.ly/Psalm117_ ) to GOD (aka HaShem, Elohim, Abba, DEO), in
the name (John 16:23) of LORD Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Amen.
Laus DEO !
Suggested further reading:
https://groups.google.com/g/sci.med.cardiology/c/5EWtT4CwCOg/m/QjNF57xRBAAJ
Shorter link:
http://bit.ly/StatCOVID-19Test
Be hungrier, which really is wonderfully healthier especially for
diabetics and other heart disease patients:
http://bit.ly/HeartDocAndrewToutsHunger (Luke 6:21a) with all glory to
GOD, Who causes us to hunger (Deuteronomy 8:3) when He blesses us
right now (Luke 6:21a) thereby removing the http://HeartMDPhD.com/VAT
from around the heart
...because we mindfully choose to openly care with our heart,
HeartDoc Andrew <><
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