How is COVID-19 impacting the live-in care sector?
How
is COVID-19 impacting the live-in care sector?
Many experienced,
long-established live-in carers agencies have been ensuring that their staff
and clients are safe with their own infection control and testing procedures
throughout the pandemic.
This pandemic has put an
immense strain on live-in care services, with over 50 thousand deaths involving
Coronavirus throughout as per the National Statistics. While the healthcare
sector has been shored up with infection control fund from the UK government
for testing, staff and PPE, the live-in care sector has not been fortunate
enough to receive fund-flood such as other medical departments, even yet. It’s almost a year since the pandemic has
taken a storm over the world, but live-in care sector is still struggling to
manage their best because of lack of government’s fund.
We at Live-In Carers Direct
have been always been transparent about the measures we have taken throughout
the crisis for our staff before assigning them to our clients. We understand the
value of life for both of our staff and clients. The world is facing a heavy
second wave of Covid-19, while seniors are in most need of live-in carers
because they can’t afford to risk their lives by visiting doctors at clinics or
hospitals.
Safety
of clients and staff
Live-in Carers Direct,
established years ago, provides care at three different levels, including
personalised, live-in nursing at clients’ own homes and private live-in care.
Clients with family nearby or trusted party looking after them are able to use
our introductory service. However, if the client has no one looking after them,
they can benefit from our full-time live-in nursing care. We assure 24/7
companionship with medical assistance and household chores. We ensure the
safety of our staff as well as clients through our very private COVID-19
testing. We have also been practising virtual infection control and training
process.
The current growth of
COVID-19 cases and lack of beds in the hospitals are certainly worrying. During
the first wave of Coronavirus, and as many of you know, thousands of senior
patients who did not appear to have COVID-19 symptoms were discharged from
various hospitals into at-home care considering the fear of the virus being
infested and fortunately many of those patients and existing residents have
survived only because live-in care sector, no matter what, has been taking the
specific needs and wants of each senior sincerely and carefully, despite facing
lack of funding from the authorities.
Live-in Carers Direct, to
speak of explicitly, is still paying very high prices for PPE for our staff,
because our sector is still not being allotted with as many PPEs as we need
from the higher authorities. We are still highly anxious about ensuring our
staff and clients ‘safety,’ but thankfully we have not received any single
confirmed COVID-19 case yet. Carers from Live-in Carers Direct do carry out
their own testing because the Government’s current PCR swab test is no longer
considered ideal as over 30% of them are generating false-negative result
reports.
We at Live-in Carers Direct,
since the outbreak of Cornovirus, have undertaken a lot of studies looking at
different types of tests available and decided to remain active with our
service to the elderlies in need, regardless of how worse the situation gets.
Winter
– the influenza season considered to boost the number of COVID-19 cases
Usually, the winter is an
influenza season which could further the complication of elderly patients. With
Government’s lack of attention towards the live-in care sector, many live-in
care agencies have been forced to shut down because they couldn’t continue
arranging PPE, plus testing for their clients and staff on their own.
We are urging the UK
Government for providing more financial support to the live-in care sector so
that we can continue helping those in need, especially, senior citizens with
dementia. Elderlies with dementia are difficult to manage, because not all
healthcare providers specialise in it. Senior citizens with dementia conditions
need specialised medical attention with 24/7 companionship (in severe cases).
Live-In carers Direct takes pride in its years of servicing senior citizens
with dementia and successful record. We want to continue being at service for
our vulnerable people throughout the pandemic. Therefore, a little financial
support will help us hold our grounds.
We
strive to deliver quality care amidst the second wave of COVID-19 in the UK
Live-in carers Direct has
included infection control as part of our training programme and has also put
extra layers of this training since the pandemic started to ensure our staff
and clients are protected. We intend to
continue our service for the sake of mankind and its well-being despite the
lack of financial support from the up-top. Taking care of seniors at times like
this is our religion and we will strive to practise it regardless of any
hardships thrown in our way.
We are going to beat
COVID-19 together.
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