The first residential care homes for the elderly will be opened up to a limited number of visitors but under very strict conditions from May 11, the Nederlands Dagblad reports.

‘We have to find a better way of combining the human aspect and the medical necessities,’ health minister Hugo de Jonge told the paper.

Relatives of elderly people in residential care homes have been banned from seeing them since March 20. Half of the homes have seen outbreaks of coronavirus and visits are only allowed if a resident is dying.

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The minister said a longer ban is no longer tenable. He has drafted a proposal to relax the ban which he will put up for consideration to the government advisory body Outbreak Management Team on May 4. A decision will be made on May 6 so the scheme can be tested in two weeks’ time, he said.

Hygiene

However, participation in the scheme is limited to homes where coronavirus outbreaks have been small and where the necessary hygiene rules can be applied.  ‘Not every Tom, Dick and Harry would be able to visit but perhaps one carer or contact person per resident,’ De Jonge said.

Visits will have to be pre-arranged and a separate room prepared for the meeting. If the scheme is successful other care homes may follow.

‘It was a difficult decision not to allow visits, Conny Helder spokeswoman of care home umbrella organisation Actiz told broadcaster NOS.  ‘We are now working on small pilot schemes which will be carried out according to a certain time scale so we can see what happens.’

This does not mean that children can once again visit granddad and grandma, Helder warned. ‘We have to be very careful because this is a very vulnerable group of people.’

Testing

Meanwhile the Amsterdam teaching hospital UMC is going to conduct a large scale investigation into the spread of coronavirus infections in care homes and how members of staff may have unwittingly contributed to it, NOS said citing a confidential document in its possession.

The proposal put forward by the hospital, which will be carried out among 1,500 people in three care homes, is included in a confidential appendix to the latest advice from the government advisory body Outbreak Management Team (OMT). It was not made public, including to MPs, for reasons that remain unclear, NOS said,

The main question scientists need answered is whether asymptomatic members of staff or residents have infected others. Similar research done in the US seem to point in that direction, NOS said. Dutch scientists too believe the virus was spread by people who had the virus but showed no symptoms.

Testing will begin on May 4 and staff and residents will be tested for the virus once a week for two weeks.

The investigation must also show if it is advisable for staff to wear face masks when caring for he elderly in homes, something the OMT currently only recommends if cases of the virus have been established.