Hansard

I welcome the debate and all the contributions that have been made so far. I say, too, that it is important to acknowledge context. Covid has changed not just Scotland and the United Kingdom; it has changed the world. It is important to recognise that the people who are in positions of power have had to make difficult decisions. The science goes only so far—it cannot provide the answer to every situation, and ministers will have, largely, to make judgment calls. Sometimes those judgment calls will be correct and sometimes, in hindsight, they will be wrong. We should not forget that ministers are working round the clock to try to make the right judgment calls. I want everyone to know that any criticisms—perceived or otherwise—that I might make in my contribution are made in that context.

The past couple of weeks have emphasised that it is important to recognise that an effective communication strategy is not the same as a virus elimination strategy. I fully accept that the Scottish Government is better at communicating about the virus than the UK Government, but their decisions on the big calls have been largely the same. Six months into the pandemic, I believe that we should, despite some recent progress, be further down the road, whether that be in testing in care homes or in visits to care homes.

Care homes have faced the greatest burden of the pandemic so far. There have been almost 2,000 deaths in care home settings. Almost half—46 per cent—of all deaths have been in care homes, despite residents representing just a fraction of the wider population.

Patients were discharged from hospital without being tested. Testing them did not require scientific advice; it is just common sense that no one should have been transferred into a care home without being tested first, and that no one who tested positive should have been transferred into a care home. At the appropriate time, an enquiry will have to look into that.

I can only begin to imagine the emotional toll that this has all taken on people. I feel blessed, in a sense, that I do not have any direct family members in a care home. However, having had to visit my granny and look through the window to give her a wave, and seeing my children cry as we drive away while I hold back tears in front of them, I have an idea of how difficult the situation has been for so many of our fellow citizens.

I can only begin to imagine how difficult it must have been to have seen and to have read the reports about what has been happening in our care homes. For thousands of our fellow citizens not to be able to have direct contact with their loved ones must be simply heartbreaking.

I will talk about more that in a moment, but first, as Alison Johnstone, Alex Cole-Hamilton and Monica Lennon have done, I pay tribute to our care home staff. The pandemic has been extremely difficult for them. They should not feel as though they are to blame for the spread of the virus in their workplaces. They went to their workplaces and risked their own lives and the lives of their families. If the pandemic has taught us anything, it is who really keeps our country going in times of crisis. That should be recognised in how those people are regarded—not just through applause, but by how they are paid and how they are treated in the workplace and by wider society.

I will go back to wider issues around care homes. We are talking fundamentally about human rights and the right to life, not about the presumption that a person who lives in a care home has a certain healthcare need or certain mental capacity. I find it really frustrating that we have, at times during the pandemic, treated care homes as palliative care centres rather than as care homes. Good quality of life matters, but too many of our fellow citizens are feeling as though they are imprisoned in their care homes, and are suffering from loneliness, isolation, and emotional, psychological and physical trauma, as a result. We will see their scars, and the crises that are being caused by the mental health scars, in the following generation for years to come.

Last week, the First Minister said that it would be ethically wrong to single out a community. She is right, but we have singled out one community—care home residents. We have heard the heartbreaking personal stories of individuals feeling disorientated, their health deteriorating and many sadly giving up on life altogether and presuming that these are their final moments in this world. It is simply heartbreaking, so I want to pay tribute to all the people with relatives in care homes, particularly care home relatives Scotland, who have been sharing their stories.

Eliminating the virus matters, but human relationships also matter. I fear that how we have responded to the virus will cost more lives and cause more long-term morbidity than the virus itself. After six months, we can do better than this—we should be doing better, and we must do better. We need rapid testing and efficient and equal personal protective equipment in care homes.

We need to recognise that human interactions are a key part of our lives and that they have to happen so that we can give justice to all the people who live in care homes and those who care for people who live in care homes. I hope that through this debate we can do better for all those citizens, and respect the human rights of all those in our care homes.