Near sixfold increase in Kildare nursing home deaths in April, report says

Nursing homes in Co Kildare experienced a near sixfold increase in deaths during the month of April, according to a report on the effects of Covid-19 in the county.

Kildare county coroner Prof Denis Cusack submitted his analysis to the Ministers for Health and Justice, as well as the acting chief medical officer, last week.

He said one of the reasons for his examination of mortality patterns in the report was to serve as a reminder of how bad things were earlier this year, and how nobody wanted to see a return to those times.

From March 11th, when the first Covid-19-related death occurred in Ireland, to June 30th, there were 1,738 deaths related to the disease nationally.

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Of those, 139 were reported in Co Kildare and of those, 113 (81 per cent) occurred in nursing and residential homes.

‘Disproportionate’

Prof Cusack said the rates in Co Kildare have been disproportionate to the experience of other counties. The county has accounted for 7.8 per cent of confirmed coronavirus cases, second only to the Dublin area.

Discussing his findings in an interview on RTÉ Radio 1's Drivetime programme, he explained that the average number of deaths in Co Kildare from March to June in the previous five years was 175. This year the figure for deaths during the period was 379, meaning an additional 204 deaths.

He said even when the 139 Covid-related deaths are subtracted, there are 65 unexplained cases.

“It means that there must be another reason for those deaths – whether it was that we didn’t have all the diagnostic information, [or] that we may not have understood that some of these deaths were due to Covid,” he said.

While the early classic symptoms of Covid-19 included a cough and shortness of breath, he pointed out that later on symptoms in older people could also include feeling off, being lethargic, loss of appetite and gastrointestinal symptoms.

The report notes that the peak excess total death rate reached 359 per cent in April 2020, following a small excess of 30 per cent in March, with an excess of 63 per cent in May and 37 per cent in June.

Care home settings

In the nursing and residential home settings in the county, however, excess death rates reached 527 per cent in April. There was an excess of 27 per cent in March, 54 per cent in May and 17 per cent in June.

Underlying medical conditions were recorded in 99 per cent of fatal cases, the report says. The average age of the deceased was 82.5 years, and 55 per cent were women.

All Covid-19 deaths and all nursing home and residential home deaths in the State must by law be reported to the coroner.

Prof Cusack noted that while this was a benefit, there is no centralised national mortality database across the 39 coroner’s offices, something he has called for.

“We would strengthen our system if we had a central coroner’s database, not just for Covid but for many other things,” he said.