The Observer
09.01.22 45‘I touched my
mother’s hand
only once in the
six weeks after
her stroke. There
were no hugs’
Nancy Saville, who was fond
of owls, ‘lost her autonomy’
after suffering a stroke during
Christmas 2020.John’s Campaign
John’s Campaign is a voluntary,
not-for-profit movement,
championed by the Observer. It
speaks for people with dementia
and for their family carers. Visit
johnscampaign.org.ukA call to arms from Richard
Fenton in Katowice in Poland.
“‘Missing in action’ is the term
used to describe the situation
of someone who has gone
into battle and failed to return
and whose fate is otherwise
unknown. As such, the term
describes someone who
has done, or tried to do, their
duty. So why is it being used
to describe politicians who
are deemed not to have done
what was expected of them?
“I suppose terms like
‘skiving’, ‘shirking’ or
‘swinging the lead’ are a
bit too direct, although the
latter could be dressed up as
‘inclinata plumbum’.”
I confess that I hadn’t
noticed this, but Mr Fenton
is spot on. Consider the
following recent headlines:
“Republicans missing in action
as Democrats emotionally
commemorate Capitol riot
anniversary”; “World Bank
under fi re for being ‘missing
in action’ on climate change”;
“Rishi Sunak ‘missing in
action’ as hospitality venues
face closure”; “Boris Johnson
is missing in action and is not
up to job as Prime Minister”.
You get my drift. I think Mr
Fenton would agree with
me, therefore, that the
perpetrators should be put on
jankers. Condign punishment
is the only answer.
Ditto for the author of the
following: “While you may
think onboarding only takes
place the fi rst few days on the
job, it actually begins before
a new hire starts and extends
through the fi rst month. And
employees are 58% more
likely to stay in a role for three
years or more when there is
a strong onboarding program.
Th at’s why we put together
this complete guide to virtual
onboarding, so you won’t
miss a step.”
Th at drivel comes courtesy
of Linked In, and was brought
to my attention by Duncan H
Brown after I wrote about this
execrable term. Th ank you,
comrades Fenton and Brown,
I feel that I’m not a lone voice
crying in the wilderness.Pandemic policy deprives my mother of
both family love and her human rights
People with dementia
have fared badly in
the last two years, and
in Wales worst of allMy mother, Nancy,
is a scientist. The fi rst person in
her family to go to university, she
was awarded a doctorate in organic
chemistry in 1960. A chemistry
teacher for 20 years, she enabled
scores of young women to enter
careers in science and medicine.
She learned Russian for the fun of it
and, when she retired to north Wales
almost 30 years ago to help with our
twin babies, she learned Welsh to a
level of fl uency that enabled her to
act as secretary for a local Welsh-
language social club.
She is a gardener, a cat lover and
is fond of owls. She is a hill-walker.
She is a practising Christian. She is
a lover of opera. She is a maker of
marmalade. And she is a mother,
grandmother and godmother.
As I write this, it feels as though I
am drafting her obituary. My mother
is alive, but we lost the person I’ve
tried to describe in a catastrophic
event just over a year ago. Nancy
had a stroke sometime between
Christmas Eve and Christmas Day at
the close of 2020. Overnight, she lost
her autonomy and agency over her
own life.
In November, she’d had a fall
and knocked her head and the
anti-stroke medication resulted
in bleeding on her brain. She was
discharged from hospital back to
her local authority residential home
at short notice and without a care
needs assessment. It immediately
became apparent that her behaviour
had changed: she was constantly
agitated, hardly slept.
Just before Christmas she fell
again and broke her hip. Doctors
advised a hip replacement and
she is recuperating in another
community hospital, Ysbyty Bryn
Beryl. She now has a diagnosis of
dementia. I do not know whether
we will be able to fi nd a suitable
placement for Nancy in the county.
These are the bald facts. Howin social care can nominate
someone who will continue to visit
in a meaningful way, keeping to the
same infection control measures
as a member of staff. Wales fi nally
acknowledged the concept of
care partners in August 2021.
Nonetheless, there remain many
care homes where even the most
minimal visits can be denied.
While we all know that the
human rights of people with
dementia in residential homes
were disproportionately disrupted
across the UK, it is to be feared
that the human rights of people
with dementia in Welsh residential
homes fared worst of all. They
have lacked public advocacy. This
situation must be investigated
as part of a Wales-specifi c Covid
inquiry and lessons learned.People living with dementia
are progressing through stages
of a terminal illness. Isolation,
separation, disruption of
relationships and routines have an
irreversible impact on wellbeing,
and hasten deterioration and death.
The most recent weekly statistics
show that 144 people died in Welsh
care homes. Only three died with
Covid as a contributory factor.
Dementia is the greatest cause of
death among women in the UK and
the second greatest for men. Given
that up to 70% of care residents are
living with dementia, it is likely to
have been a factor in the deaths of
the majority of those 144 people.
The human rights of disabled ,
sick and elderly people are not
optional extras to be disregarded
when health and social care are
under pressure. If the present
health and social policy remains
unchallenged and under-scrutinised
in Wales (and elsewhere in the UK),
basic human rights will continue
to be ignored and people’s health
and welfare will suffer. Not only
would this be to our shame now,
it also risks leaving a legacy of
consequences into the future.Liz Saville Roberts is group leader
of Plaid Cymru in the House of
Commonsit has affected us as a family is
less easy to put in words, but
this is, simply, the saddest and
most challenging thing that my
daughters and I have ever endured.
My mother, who never claimed a
penny of welfare before her state
pension, who believed in public
duty and participated in every
community in which she lived,
suddenly needed the support of
health and care services in an
emergency.
Many of the key workers with
whom we interacted over the last
12 months were extraordinary. We
have been beyond lucky to have
dealt with a number of nurses,
doctors and care workers who had
the confi dence and humanity to
keep to the spirit and not the letter
of offi cial edicts. Even so, I touched
my mother’s hand only once during
the critical six weeks after her fi rst
stroke. There were no hugs. Health
authority infection policy vetoed
family bonds of love as a health
hazard to be minimised.
I am no Covid-denier. We put in
place measures such as lockdowns
and visiting restrictions at hospitals
and care homes because they were
the best we could do with what we
knew back in 2020. We had no Covid
tests at the onset. The development
of effective vaccines happened
at pace, but they didn’t become
available until early 2021.
But we must continue to learn:
treating the elderly and people with
dementia as units of fl esh and bone
by meeting the barest minimum of
their Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is
wrong. We are social animals: take
away our social support and we fail
to thrive. Denying family contact
causes immediate welfare harm to
patients and will cause longer term
harm to family members. I will live
for the rest of my life with the guilt
that I let my mother down at the
time when she needed me most.
Wales has a respectable policy
text in place with our Dementia
Action Plan for Wales 2018–2022.
But there is a yawning chasm
between what it describes and the
reality of what is happening in
Wales’s hospitals and care homes.
Northern Ireland, Scotland and
England have slowly and patchily
accepted the need for essential care
givers or care partners, whereby
ensuring that people living with
dementia and other vulnerabilitiesMay I have
a word?
Jonathan
Bouquet
The shifting patterns
of English: the misuse
of ‘missing in action’
Liz
Saville Roberts