A CARER who looks after his wife with dementia says he was left with no choice but to cancel her Covid jag because she cannot travel to the mass vaccination site.
It comes after charity Alzheimer's Scotland warned that people with dementia could miss out unless more is done to provide practical support, including home visits.
Peter Charleton, from Stockbridge in Edinburgh, is the sole carer for his 71-year-old wife Mary, who has Alzheimer's disease.
Earlier this week, Mrs Charleton received an appointment letter in the post inviting her to attend Edinburgh International Conference Centre at 8.50am on February 1 for her Covid jag.
READ MORE: Dementia campaigners warn that home visits needed to prevent people missing out on vaccinations
However, Mr Charleton, 69, says the couple would be unable to get there because it is too far to walk, they do not have a car, and Mrs Charleton's illness and fear of coronavirus means she would be too distressed to use a taxi.
He said: "Unfortunately Mary has balance issues, due to her Alzheimer's disease, and she will only go out with me on short walks.
"She will not travel on public transport and she will not get in to a taxi, due to her fear of the driver being a carrier of the virus and being enclosed in a very small space with a stranger.
"We cannot walk to the EICC so I had to phone and cancel her appointment."
Mr Charleton says he would have been able to get his wife to their GP surgery - a 10 minute walk from their home in Stockbridge - for the jag, but due to their ages they are covered by the EICC mass vaccination centre instead.
Most GP practices in Lothian have opted to deliver the vaccinations for the over-80s, over-75s, and patients who are on the shielding list - but that does not cover Mrs Charleton.
READ MORE: Postcode lottery and confusion over vaccine rollout to over-70s
As each fall into separate vaccine priority groups - the over 70s, and over 65s - they will also be invited for vaccination on separate dates, which creates additional difficulties for Mr Charleton as his wife's unpaid carer.
He contacted his GP surgery for advice, but says he remains in the dark about how his wife can get the jag.
He said: "She advised me that Mary should in her opinion take a black cab and she would be very safe in doing so.
"I again told her that Mary would be too frightened to go in a taxi.
"She then told me that there was a 'housebound team' that may look into Mary’s vaccine but she did not know if they would include Mary and she did not know when and if Mary would get another opportunity to have a vaccine.
"I asked her if she could give me contact details for this team and she said that she could not do this.
"I was left feeling that no one actually cared about my wife."
Their case is has been taken up by the Edinburgh charity Care4Carers, which supports people who care for loved ones.
An email from the charity manager Ruth MacLennan to Peter on Wednesday stated that they are "getting a lot of calls from carers with very similar issues to yourself" following the distribution of invitation letters to over-70s this week.
READ MORE: Criticism over 'humiliating' online test for medical students
Vaccinations of the housebound in Scotland are being carried out by district nurses.
However, teams are already overstretched partly due to record numbers of people who are dying at home during the pandemic, rather than in hospital, with terminal illnesses such as cancer.
Jim Pearson, Alzheimer Scotland's director of policy and research, said it would be "totally impractical" for some people with dementia to attend a vaccination site.
He said: “For those people we have to do something different and that should include a home visit.
“We spoke to someone who was able to get that relatively easily from their GP practice.
"We want to see that option available for people for whom it is not practical to get to one of the vaccination centres."
David Small, vaccination programme lead for NHS Lothian, said: “The majority of people will be invited to attend one of the mass vaccination clinics and we strongly encourage them to make this appointment.
"However, a number of local clinics are also available for people who cannot travel to the mass vaccination centres if, for example, they have complex medical needs or mobility issues.
"They will find details of who to contact to discuss this on their invite.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel