For nursing home carer Anne Clark these are long, dark days.

This is the third shift in a row where a patient in her care has died with COVID-19.

And there’s nothing she can do about it.

On this occasion, the man was discharged from hospital into the home and while it is not known how he caught the virus his condition worsened rapidly over the course of a few days.

The man’s family could not be by his bedside due to strict quarantine rules put in place by the care home owner, who has seen 50 confirmed cases and 13 deaths in the last two weeks.

Anne has been nursing the man since the beginning of her shift and while we were there he gets worse.

At 4pm, he passed away.

“Day after day we are losing people to this virus. Each shift is getting worse. I’m exhausted,” Anne tells me, as she removes her paper mask and rubber gloves.

We have been allowed access to the home under strict conditions.

We have supplied our own personal protective equipment (PPE) and have been trained in infection control so that we do not pose a risk to ourselves or others.

Inside the home we witness over-stretched staff wearing inadequate PPE on wards usually staffed by double the number of carers. We see weak, frail patients struggling to breath.

And we see how COVID-19 positive residents are kept behind closed doors and only visited by designated nurses.

The ward corridors are sometimes quiet, still places.

Anne tells me: “It’s not always a good sign when things get quiet.”

Every hour a nurse goes in to check the patients are okay.

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