Updated | Investigation into elderly homes over COVID-19 surge to establish whether protocols were followed

An investigation is underway by the standards regulator to determine what went wrong in elderly care homes that experienced a surge in COVID-19 cases.

Matthew Vella, CEO of the Social Care Standards Authority, said on TVM’s TVAM on Monday that only two care homes still had active cases of coronavirus among residents – St Joseph Home in Fgura with 30 positive cases and Casa Antonia in Balzan with four.

Speaking to MaltaToday after the programme, a spokesperson for the authority said the CEO had initiated an investigation to determine how the outbreak of COVID-19 happened in old people’s homes and to identify any shortcomings.

“The investigation is intended to determine the possible source of COVID-19; to check if management in residential homes were in conformity with the protocols; to confirm if the residential homes were in conformity with the recommendations made by SCSA and experts in this sector,” the authority said.

Matthew Vella, CEO at the Social Care Standards Authority, announced the investigation on TVAM

Earlier, Vella had said that rather than shortcomings, there was a crucial difference between the first wave of the pandemic when carers had voluntarily opted to live at the homes, and the second wave were carers are not resident.

“Swabbing has been happening regularly as well. We are conducting an investigation to determine what went wrong,” Vella said.

The authority has now clarified that the wide-ranging investigation will also determine whether elderly homes followed all protocols.

The St Joseph Home in Fgura was worst hit, having almost half its residents infected with COVID-19, apart from a substantial number of carers.

Relatives of residents at the home have been complaining of a lack of information about their loved ones. They have also expressed concern over lack of staffing levels, which made it difficult for residents’ needs to be met within a reasonable time.

Vella said the authority intervened on the ground to enable care homes manage the surge in cases. One of the decisions taken was to transfer healthy residents out of the St Joseph Home to another location.

The surge of COVID-19 cases in homes for the elderly is partially responsible for the high number of deaths among elderly people that Malta has experienced over the past five weeks.

Since the start of the pandemic Malta has registered 3,270 coronavirus cases, including 39 deaths.

Questions sent to Parliamentary Secretary Silvio Parnis, who is responsible for the elderly sector, have gone unanswered.