Problems in care homes go deeper than Covid, says report

Care homes for the elderly were particularly hard hit by the Covid-19 pandemic. Keystone / Cyril Zingaro

An expert report commissioned by the government’s Covid-19 scientific taskforce criticises Swiss elderly people’s homes during the pandemic, and says some of the problems are structural.

The pandemic posed and still poses particular difficulties for long-term care institutions, says the report released on Monday. Residents of elderly care homes were infected with a severe form of Covid-19 or died at a higher-than-average rate, it notes.

However, most of the issues identified are not specific to the pandemic but are “structural and have been known for years by those involved in long-term care”, the authors write. These include lack of qualified nursing staff and cumbersome communication with external medical institutions such as doctors’ practices and hospitals.

The number and qualifications of the nursing staff working in these institutions are not sufficient to meet the needs of the residents, it says. In many homes for the elderly, there is an urgent need for internal or external expertise in epidemiology, infection prevention, anticipatory care plans and palliative care. The experts have produced a set of recommendations sent to actors in the field.

Carol Gay, former head of the umbrella organisation for care homes in canton Vaud, defended the sector in an interviewExternal link with the Swiss public broadcaster RTS on Tuesday. “We still have a lot of room for improvement, but we are working on it with our colleagues,” she said.