Martin Jannaway’s wife and daughter are both highly qualified carers with years of experience working in care homes.
Yet they have been forbidden from giving the 65-year-old a hug for the past year.
Mr Jannaway, who has dementia, has suffered hugely from the lack of contact with his family. This time last year he could eat, drink, exercise and speak.
Now he has lost all speech, is doubly incontinent and cannot eat or drink unaided.
Martin Jannaway, who has dementia, has suffered hugely from the lack of contact with his family. This time last year he could eat, drink, exercise and speak
His daughter Joanne, 36, said: ‘I’ve been allowed a handful of outdoor visits, but haven’t had any physical contact with him since March.
‘I’ve worked as a private carer throughout the pandemic. But I’m not allowed in to give my dad a hug even though they have agency carers in all day.’ She is horrified by the amount of weight he has lost and has pleaded with the care home managers to let her visit.
But they have refused, even now she has been vaccinated.
Miss Jannaway cannot have phone conversations with her dad because of his loss of speech, which she said ‘was the final straw of losing him entirely’.
She added that the new guidance did not go far enough.
She said: ‘We’re a very big family but he will only be allowed to see one of us. I fear it’s another way of the Government giving us false hope.’ Mr Jannaway, from Chichester, was diagnosed with dementia six years ago at the age of 59.
His wife quit her job as a care home manager to look after him full time, before he was moved to a home last February.Michael Blakstad, whose wife Trisha is in a care home with Alzheimer’s, said the new guidance is ‘too little too late’.
Mr Blakstad, 80, said that if measures to allow visits had been brought in earlier it would have saved his wife from ‘going completely down the hill’.
‘She’s now in advanced dementia,’ he said. ‘The manager in the present home is sure that is due to the restrictions of Covid.’
Meaningful care home visits restarted briefly in December following a major Daily Mail campaign, which led to the rollout of rapid tests for visitors.
But several care homes ignored the guidance and campaigners fear today’s announcement on the road out of lockdown could be another ‘false dawn’.They are backing new legislation, drawn up by Parliament’s human rights committee, which would give relatives the legal status as ‘essential family carers’ and make outright bans illegal.
Labour’s care spokesman Liz Kendall said: ‘To have any confidence that things will really change, we need legislation to enshrine residents’ rights to visits and end the scandal of blanket visiting bans.’
James White, head of public affairs at the Alzheimer’s Society, said: ‘We urge for restrictions to be eased further... to allow sons, daughters and grandchildren to see their loved ones too.’
Caroline Abrahams, of Age UK, said the new guidance means hundreds of thousands in care homes ‘can realistically hope that their nightmarish separation will be coming to an end soon’.
But Helen Wildbore, of the Relatives & Residents Association, said: ‘Asking residents to choose a single constant visitor for face-to-face visits will lead to heart-breaking decisions between family members and friends.
‘The proposals fall far too short of what is needed to end the distress of isolation for the most vulnerable residents. For people with dementia and other conditions, touch is crucial.’
I should have been with her
Lily Henderson and her daughter Sue Bennett had lived together for 33 years until October.
Now the 93-year-old struggles to recognise her only child, after being moved into a care home following time in hospital for a knee injury.
Mrs Bennett, 66, is devastated by the dramatic decline in her mother’s mental and physical health during their five months apart.
She said Mrs Henderson had always been ‘fit and healthy’ and was well when first taken to hospital in October.
Lily Henderson, 93, is pictured above with daughter Sue (left, then) but today (right) she is confined to a wheelchair
But her mother was later sectioned and placed on anti-psychotic drugs. After three months she couldn’t walk unaided and was moved to a care home.
Mrs Bennett, from Liverpool, said: ‘I have only seen her properly three times since October. Before she went into hospital she could dress, feed, wash herself and walk up the stairs. Now she’s mostly in a wheelchair and can’t do anything.’
She added: ‘If I had been allowed to be with her it would be a totally different outcome.’
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