24 December 2022: Grieving Relatives Plan Legal Action Against Government Over COVID Care Home Deaths

Grieving relatives plan legal action against government over Covid care home deaths

This story comes from the United Kingdom, which shares many of the same problems that resulted from the resigned-in-disgrace former New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo's deadly 25 March 2020 directive. Here's the introduction for this report:

Relatives of care home residents who died of Covid-19 are preparing to take legal action against the government over the spread of virus in the first wave of the pandemic.

Kim Nottage, from Bethnal Green, is among those who are pursuing legal action against the Health Secretary, the Health Security Agency, and individual care homes.

She lost her 86-year-old mother, Maureen, when she was being cared for at Aspen Court care home in Poplar, London, managed by HC-One.

Here are the main excerpts where the similarities with Andrew M. Cuomo's disastrous COVID policies for nursing home residents really begin to take off, highlighted boldface emphasis ours:

Law firm Leigh Day said on Friday that it is representing Mr Bethell, Ms Nottage, and three other grieving relatives in planned legal action over the discharge of patients with Covid from hospitals back to care homes in the early stages of the pandemic in 2020. Others could join the legal action as it progresses....

Earlier this year, a judge at the High Court found that government policies in March and April 2020, to discharge patients from hospital back to care homes to free up beds, had been unlawful.

A judge concluded ministers had failed to take into account the risk to elderly and vulnerable residents from non-symptomatic transmission of the Covid virus....

Leigh Day solicitor Beatrice Morgan added: “Policy and guidance was issued which encouraged the move of patients from hospitals to care homes, yet failed to take into account the risk of asymptomatic transmission of covid-19 to individuals who were most vulnerable to the virus.

“Rather than ensuring residents were protected, government decisions allowed the deadly virus to spread like wildfire throughout care homes across the country.

“The advice was changed far too late, it is impossible to know just how many lives were lost as a result.”

The U.K.'s legal system is moving more quickly than where similar cases are being advanced in New York's state courts. These cases are likely to serve as models for how similar cases in U.S. courts will be litigated.