A relative of two women with COVID-19 has filed a police report over negligence at their home for the elderly that is trying to control an outbreak of the virus.

Mario Mifsud is angry about the way Residenza San Guzepp in Fgura is being run and how its residents are being treated – and he is joined by a chorus of other relatives.

His sister and mother both tested positive on Monday – joining 113 other cases of the 278 residents in the home – and Wednesday was the first time he was contacted by a government doctor since the number of coronavirus cases started growing over two weeks ago.

He and others claim it is understaffed – with 29 workers infected and 50 in quarantine, according to the management, who did not reply to questions on how many employees were actually doing the job. 

“With the coordination between our home and all the departments concerned, we have managed to control the situation of our workers,” general manager Emmanuel Saliba said.

But as a result of the alleged lack of staff, Mifsud recounted how his 47-year-old sister, who uses a wheelchair and has cerebral palsy, “rang the bell for two hours to get some water to drink” recently, while another resident, who was stressing to get her relative out of the home yesterday, also claimed she was also left thirsty, hungry and in a dark room.

Mifsud said his mother is not in a position to communicate and his dad, who is also practically bedridden, eventually managed to manoeuvre his wheelchair around the room get his sister a drink, dehydration being “COVID-19’s worst enemy”.

Mario Mifsud is concerned about the treatment of his sister, Antonella. Photo: Family

She had informed him that she and her mother tested positive on Monday, together with another 15 residents, and his father is not leaving his family in their room on the fourth floor as he is the only one who can somehow assist them.

Questions about the source of the outbreak have not been addressed, with health authorities saying carers go about their own lives after work and can be exposed to the virus.

But Mifsud said he was informed a patient attended a party for dementia patients on the home’s sixth floor immediately after he visited hospital, and was later found to be positive, which is when testing started.

Sometime later, his sister, who also attended the party “because they take her everywhere”, was swabbed, but not his mother and father, who objected to the fact that only she was tested.

Mifsud on Wednesday had a "very positive" meeting with the Social Care Standards Authority to take his case further.

“The little voice and popularity I have as a former DJ I will use to help others,” he said, referring to an inundation of messages from other relatives of residents in the home and the Old People Matter ‘movement’ that is spreading.

“My parents have worked all their life for me. How can I let this go? They need to come out and be put in a proper hospital, with proper nurses. This is not a hospital, but an old people’s home,” he said.

The management of Residenza San Guzepp say they have the outbreak under control. Photo: Mark Zammit Cordina

Mifsud and others also maintained the home was not informing the relatives about the residents’ situation, and neither were they keeping them abreast with test results.

But Saliba begged to differ, saying the home was contacting the families of residents who tested positive immediately after the results were received. 

“With regard to the rest of the families of those residents whose results are negative, we are also in constant contact with all of them, through messages, calls, and e-mails,” he said.

Saliba said one of the ways to curb the spread was by separating residents according to their test results, through bubble clusters. Positive and negative cases and persons in quarantine are not in contact with one another.

Seven doctors – four consultants and three general practitioners – are giving continuous support, he said. They are monitoring the situation day and night, and any clinical decision, such as whether a resident should remain at the home, or be transferred to Mater Dei, is made solely by them, Saliba said, adding that the home also had an on-call service during the night.

For better control over the situation and for the containment of COVID-19, all staff members and residents were being swabbed every three days, he assured.

“Thankfully, we have started receiving news of persons who had previously tested positive, but are now negative,” Saliba said, adding that the majority of the infected residents are asymptomatic.

Since the outbreak, one patient died in the home and another two residents passed away in hospital, while 14 others from the home are at Mater Dei.