"UKColumn was recently contacted by an experienced Care Home manager. The individual was deeply concerned about the effects of Covid 19 and vaccinations, on both staff and the elderly, within care facilities across the country. Finally their personal concern had reached the point where they felt the need to speak out to the wider public.
However, due to likely management pressure and kick-back, and likely punitive action from within the broader Care system itself, they needed to do so as an anonymous whistleblower. We take it as a significant compliment that they chose come to the UKColumn to tell their story.
As will become apparent in the interview with them, to speak out from within the UK Care System in 2021, carries risks to both your job, and professionally qualified status. In short, whistleblowers are at risk of losing their job, and may lose the ability to find care work elsewhere if this also impacts on their vital professional registration.*
Against this background we applaud this person for their courage in blowing the whistle and speaking the truth.
Please join us in this UKColumn news special, where we hear first hand about the mindset of the social care system, which has reacted vigorously to implement the UK governmentâs Covid 19 protection policies - to the point of being zealous. But despite strict adherence to the governmentâs Covid protection arrangements, and diligent care work in general, it now emerges that elderly people who remained free of Covid for many weeks and months, became Covid positive following vaccinations. A pattern that was also to affect hardworking staff, who until then, had been clear of the illness.
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Significantly this pattern was being seen by managers across the countryâs care system, and sickness amongst staff of course placed both the care system itself, and those staff still working, under greatly increased pressure.
Our whistleblower stresses that far from being one or two odd cases, there was a âdramatic increaseâ in Covid outbreaks after vaccinations. Asked if this related to one particular, or all of the three vaccines, they stated that they did not have precise information on this, but believed the Pfizer vaccine was the most likely culprit.*
Moreover there was âhuge confusion in Covid testing and the reliability of results." The testing policy and results such as they are, were described as an âever changing landscape,â in which little confidence could be placed.*
Questioned as to the route by which these observations and concerns could be passed into official professional channels, the whistleblower commented that whether the reporting channel was the CQC or the Professional Care body, there was a reluctance to hear bad news about the Covid 19 and vaccination policy as a whole. To the point the system which should have received and acted upon concerns, was described as having âtin ears.â It did not want to hear and would not hear.
The whistleblower also added that âincreasingly social care provision was no longer a question of the application of appropriate professional care decided upon by the carer themselves, but rather professional social carers were now treated as an 'Agent of the Stateâ to follow guidelines and procedures.â*
As we see Covid 19 deaths amongst the elderly increasing, with further mortality increases (for whatever reason) post vaccination, the picture provided by this individual of some 30 years professional care experience at high management level, is deeply worrying. Vulnerable elderly people are becoming sick and are dying, their hard pressed carers are also becoming sick, and yet to speak out brings indifference at best, and real threats to the whistleblowerâs job at worst.
What is really going on in the care system around vulnerable elderly people? How has the UK care system come to this troubled state? Join us to hear this critical whistleblower testimony for yourself, and please do help them by sharing this report as widely as possible.
Licence
Creative Commons Attribution licence (reuse allowed)"
*Italics mine.
[UK Column News Special: Care Home Whistleblower - YouTube]
Disabled people (as defined) made up almost 6 in 10 (59%) of all deaths involving COVID-19
"Provisional analysis, for the period 2 March to 14 July 2020, compares the risk of death involving the coronavirus (COVID-19) according to a personâs disability status as recorded in the 2011 Census; people are counted as disabled if they said their daily activities were limited a little or limited a lot by a health problem or disability lasting or expected to last at least 12 months, in this data source.
Disabled people (as defined) made up almost 6 in 10 (59%) of all deaths involving COVID-19 in this period; disabled people made up around 16% of the study population followed from the 2011 Census.
Among all deaths involving COVID-19 of males aged 9 to 64 years in this period, the proportion made up by disabled people (those limited a little or limited a lot in their day-to-day activities) was smallest at 39%; among all deaths involving COVID-19 of females aged 65 years and over in this period, the proportion made up by disabled people was largest, at 67% of these deaths.
Among both males and females aged 9 years and over, those who were either disabled and limited a lot or disabled and limited a little in 2011 had a statistically significant higher age standardised mortality rate (ASMR) of death involving COVID-19 in this period than those who were non-disabled; male and female disabled people who were limited a lot had a statistically significantly higher ASMR of death involving COVID-19 than disabled people who were limited a little.
Disabled males whose activities were limited a lot at the 2011 Census had an overall age-standardised rate of death involving COVID-19 of 240.8 deaths per 100,000; for disabled females, the rate was 169.9 deaths per 100,000; the equivalent rates for males and females who were non-disabled in 2011 were 84.2 and 44.4 deaths per 100,000 respectively.
After adjusting for region, population density, socio-demographic and household characteristics, the relative difference in mortality rates between those disabled and limited a lot and those non-disabled was 2.4 times higher for females and 2.0 times higher for males.
Our research was based on linking deaths to the 2011 Census, the most timely data available, including people aged 9 years and over; we used a regression model to adjust for specific characteristics for people in private households at the time of the census; we aim to undertake further analysis that takes into account other characteristics such as pre-existing health conditions." Coronavirus (COVID-19) related deaths by disability status, England and Wales - Office for National Statistics
