Thousands of children are trapped in a nursing home hell

Like every 11-year-old, Josh Jones loves Christmas.

Especially since it is normally one of the few times that he is at home with his family for a whole week.

Josh, from Warrington, has a genetic disease and is severely disabled. He needs 24-hour care provided by medical staff from the residential school where he stays five nights a week.

“Every Christmas morning, Josh’s father takes him out of bed and puts him on his knee in front of the tree, where he will squirm excitedly,” said his mother, Kate, a 42-year-old student. ordinator.

“And he’s always trying to snuggle up with his six-year-old brother Seb.” But not this year.

Josh is one of thousands of disabled youths who are stuck in a care home over the holidays – hundreds of miles from home.

Since March, Kate and her husband Clive, 45, have spent just a few hours with their son. Despite indoor visits being allowed in Level 3 areas, Josh’s caregivers have prohibited hugs and pinches.

On Christmas Day, the family made the 90-minute journey to Josh’s nursing home for an outside visit, which lasted just an hour – in full PPE.

“He’s so excited to see us most of the time, all dizzy, but his eyes were blank and he clearly had no idea what was going on,” says Kate.

“What’s the point if we can’t hug or kiss our son at Christmas?”

Many have been torn from their families this year, with Tier 4 restrictions prohibiting home visits for people in residential care.

But for young disabled people, who are not a priority for the vaccine or the increased range of rapid tests, there is no end to isolation.

The Mail on Sunday has heard of many desperate parents, some of whom are under mild restrictions, who are trapped in this nightmare.

A mother was told by the nursing home staff that she couldn’t even wave through a window at her disabled daughter at Christmas.

Another was not allowed to accept presents because there was not enough staff to unwrap them.

Now campaigners are pushing for disabled children to be added to the official priority list of Covid-19 vaccines.

“Ten months later, the government still has no control over Covid-19 in nursing homes for people with disabilities,” says Louise Rubin of Scope.

Part of the solution would be for people at risk to be vaccinated as soon as possible. If I don’t take action, I’m afraid to think about the toll this pandemic will take on the disabled and their families in 2021. ‘

Scope and Mencap – the UK’s largest charity for people with intellectual disabilities – have written to the government urging the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization to reconsider the priority list.

Few disabled children qualify for the ‘extremely clinically vulnerable’ priority group. And even then, many will wait for months. Josh has not been told if he will receive a vaccine.

In September, this newspaper told about young handicapped people who were locked up in houses, who could no longer see their loved ones.

Many were sad, with a young man injuring himself to face isolation.

A lack of clear government guidelines led many services to implement their own draconian rules.

New official advice for nursing homes, published this month, urged them to facilitate visits where possible and even suggested that home visits could be done using 16 million rapid tests delivered by the government.

Many retirement homes already welcome regular visitors, with the help of weekly tests.

But experts say services for children and young people cannot yet benefit from it. Josh Jones’s Parents,

Kate and Clive have not received any tests.

Nor does Kristin Donald, from Waverley, Surrey, whose son Sean, 24, has serious learning disabilities. He lives part-time in a house 45 minutes from his parents.

“They only received the first box of tests last week and only one employee has been trained in tests,” says Kirstin, 41. Since March, she has only seen her son four times, less than four hours in total, due to a strict visit policy.

Hopes for a festive reunion were dashed when Sean’s area was placed on level 4, and he became increasingly upset. ‘When I told him he kept moaning’ Mommy ‘over and over and was very teary.’

Experts say part of the problem is a lack of specific guidance for the 30,000 children and young adults in health care facilities. “Disabled people were at the bottom of the pile,” said Sheila Brown, of the charity for disabled children, NewLife. She calls Covid testing “patchy.”

“We have heard that some disabled residents book their own tests online so they can visit safely. Unfortunately, a bad reaction to a disability in the UK is nothing new. ‘