Happy Easter and it's one like no other. I am so sorry for people who cannot attend services through the weekend but, from my contacts with local vicars, I know that a lot of churches are now doing the services virtually on line. That is some good news at least.
I am sure all of us realise there is a ‘silent service’ of key workers in our society. Very little is being broadcast about what is happening in our care homes. In a constituency like Beckenham we have quite a few of them and normally I visit them as part of my constituency work. Clearly that has not been possible recently but nonetheless it hasn’t stopped me wondering how they were coping.
So, I spent much of yesterday telephoning as many local care homes as I could to find out just how things were in them. Most I have visited in the past so I had met quite a few of the managers and staff already.
I think they were very pleased I telephoned. By return I was slightly taken aback at just how positive they all were because I expected to hear quite a lot of doom and gloom. There I was wrong. When I asked directly if they were coping with the situation not one said they were not on top of things or complained about lack of support from outside. Staff morale was pretty high I was told; not one said it was not!
Of the dozen or so homes (one shown on photograph) I contacted there were just a few instances of Coronavirus amongst residents but not many. Two homes had a couple of confirmed cases of Coronavirus, another had one case and a fourth had a lady who had been sent to hospital but was now back where she was known being looked after in a place she knew well. How decent and caring is that? The other care homes had no cases at all. In Bromley Borough we now have 620 cases of people confirmed with Coronavirus as of last night. Thank Goodness there are so few in our care homes. There may be a good reason for that.
Everyone with whom I spoke told me that they were very, very strictly applying safety rules. Every care home had PPE and all staff wore it when doing their jobs. I asked if there was an adequate supply of protective gear and they all told me that there was no problem at least now. They were pretty confident that they would be resupplied as necessary too.
Carers tend not to have much of a public voice but I truly hope that we will give them huge credit from now onwards. Those I spoke too were upbeat and had tremendous spirit. The NHS unsurprisingly dominates headlines at the moment but carers are equally involved in this struggle. In truth they normally get very little pay reward for their devoted hard work and, right now, risky service.
Locally we have a much higher proportion of the elderly than many other London boroughs but inevitably all of us are likely to be cared for at some time in our lives. I gather that quite a few carers work on zero hours contracts – which can be useful for both sides I admit – yet, after this is all over, I believe we should look at how we can show just how much we value their service by paying them more.
Although residents fully understand and accept the requirement for them to keep away from other people in their own interests, it is inevitable that they can get very lonely. Obviously, relatives and friends cannot come and see them at the moment. So, I was great to learn that every home I rang had sorted out ways of dealing with this problem. I gather some residents are getting dab hands at using SKYPE and other forms of social media! Two homes told me that they had actually purchased equipment just for this purpose and the staff were connecting up residents with family and friends if they could not do it themselves.
When I started my ring around, I expected to be depressed by what I would hear. But I was wrong. Locally, at least and based on my relatively small sample, the staff of care homes locally seem to be coping and residents are being well looked after despite the difficulties. Obviously, I did not speak to all local homes. There may be some (I don’t know that though) who have problems. But those with whom I made contact were on good form.
Unsurprisingly therefore, last night at 8-o-clock, I clapped particularly hard for carers in our local homes. They too are key front line workers and I thank them from the bottom of my heart on behalf of us all.
Again, Happy Easter everyone and let us hope our prayers will be answered soon.