{"id":229891,"date":"2025-07-01T17:49:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-01T17:49:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/229891\/"},"modified":"2025-07-01T17:49:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-01T17:49:10","slug":"wrexham-nursing-home-owner-tells-covid-inquiry-lack-of-testing-terrified-staff-covid-inquiry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/229891\/","title":{"rendered":"Wrexham nursing home owner tells Covid inquiry lack of testing terrified staff | Covid inquiry"},"content":{"rendered":"

A woman whose husband killed himself amid the pressure of running a care home during the pandemic has told the Covid inquiry<\/a> that staff were \u201cabsolutely terrified\u201d owing to the lack of testing in its early stages.<\/p>\n

Helen Louise Hough owned and managed a nursing home in Wrexham with her husband, Vernon, which housed up to 40 residents whom she described as like \u201ctheir extended family\u201d.<\/p>\n

Giving evidence at the UK Covid-19 inquiry on Tuesday, Hough said her husband had been traumatised after witnessing the \u201chorrific\u201d death of a patient who was \u201cbegging him for help\u201d as she lay gasping.<\/p>\n

Hough said she had tried to get a prescription for oxygen to aid the woman\u2019s breathing, but had instead been given end-of-life medication. \u201cWe never, ever got the oxygen,\u201d she said. \u201cShe was our first Covid death, and she was a lovely lady. Vernon had to go in the room. She just said: \u2018Help me, Vernon, I can\u2019t breathe.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cI just made him get out because he\u2019d never seen anything like this. We\u2019d never seen anything like it. She was literally gasping for air, and we couldn\u2019t do anything. We didn\u2019t have anything to give her. He got very distressed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hough was giving evidence on behalf of Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice Cymru at the start of a five-week module of the inquiry, which will focus on care homes.<\/p>\n

She said her staff \u201cworked non-stop\u201d, with many sleeping in a caravan on site to avoid spreading the disease, but they were \u201call absolutely terrified\u201d as they didn\u2019t know who had Covid because of a lack of available tests.<\/p>\n

Hough said that in a March 2020 meeting with the local authority, GP group leaders and other care home providers, she was told that their residents \u201cwould not be considered for ventilation\u201d.<\/p>\n

When she insisted she would not accept any hospital patients into the home unless they came with written evidence of a negative Covid test, she was told she would be reported to the care inspectorate for bed blocking.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said nobody is stepping foot into my nursing home without a negative Covid swab,\u201d she told the inquiry. \u201cBecause I was an owner and a manager \u2026 I had the choice to say: you\u2019re not coming into my home, but I\u2019m not sure that every manager had that choice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her husband, who carried out maintenance tasks as well as some caring responsibilities, took his own life on 21 May 2020, aged 61, after losing weight and becoming depressed as the strain of the pandemic took its toll.<\/p>\n

Earlier, giving evidence for Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice, Jane Weir-Wierzbowska described the pain of not being able to visit her mother, Patricia, who had dementia, for more than 10 months after the Gloucestershire care home she lived in was locked down.<\/p>\n

She said she spoke to her mother, as she lay dying from Covid, via a mobile phone, which was wrapped in a black bin bag and placed on her shoulder.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy can\u2019t there be more dignity than having to speak to my mum through a plastic bag?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The inquiry continues, with former health secretary Matt Hancock due to give evidence on Wednesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A woman whose husband killed himself amid the pressure of running a care home during the pandemic has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":229892,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4316],"tags":[105,4348,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-229891","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-healthcare","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114779243406609261","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229891\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}