Former MHK Chris Robertshaw has said Abbotswood Nursing Home residents who died from Covid-19 could have been saved if the island had gone into lockdown earlier.

This comes after Dr Rosalind Ranson, medical director of the Department of Health and Social Care, evidence given to Tynwald’s Public Accounts Committee was made public last week.

It said the government should have shut the borders 11 days before they did.

Mr Robertshaw said that if the government had acted on Dr Ranson’s advice at the ’appropriate time’ the deaths in Abbotswood care home in Ballasalla may not have happened.

Twenty Abbotswood residents died in 2020 after an outbreak of the virus within the home.

Mr Robertshaw told Manx Radio: ’Had we closed the borders when Dr Ranson said we should, we may very well not have had Abbotswood.’

Dr Ranson suggested the island was ’unprepared for what was the equivalent of this tsunami heading for our shores’.

The island first entered lockdown on March 26 last year 11 days after she wrote to the Chief Minister urging the government to take ’urgent action’.

Meanwhile, following its £1.2m refurbishment completed in July, Abbotswood is reopening under a new name.

The Silverdale Care Home’s first new resident will move in on August 23.

Sixty-three residents are expected to have arrived by Easter 2022.

There will be strict Covid-19 protocols and policies in place for staff and visiting relatives.

Company director and manager Ana Calado will be overseeing the day-to-day running of Silverdale.

She will be supported by a returning team of nurses and carers, plus catering and domestic colleagues, who will provide 24-hour attention and assistance for the residents.

Palliative care will remain an area of expertise and a separate secure wing will accommodate the elderly mentally ill residents.

A statement released by Silverdale said that the staged admission and return to Ballasalla would ’ensure a straightforward, care-driven process to provide a happy, comfortable and friendly residential environment’.

The programme of building works and facilities renewal was overseen by Stewart Clague Services earlier this year.

It involved new lights and electrical circuitry, new floors, replacement plumbing and kitchens, new interior doors, furniture and carpets, re-decoration plus modern beds.