Sheffield care home staff go back to their families after a month on lockdown with residents
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Eight staff at Bridgedale House in Ranmoor volunteered to move in with the home's 23 residents, whose ages range from 65 to 98 – putting them at high risk of serious illness should they become infected.
Now five workers have swapped with four others, giving members of the first team the chance to take a break. All of the replacement staff have been self-isolating beforehand.
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Hide Ad“Most care homes have been affected by Covid-19 - ours hasn't. We are Covid-19 free,” said Sarah-Jane Clark, one of the original group, shortly before the changeover happened. “We had really good measures in place before things got worse. We're all safe, we stopped visitors very early on, and had staff living here and not going in and out.”
There have been outbreaks of coronavirus at more than 2,000 care homes across the country, leading to promises from the Government that all residents and staff with symptoms will be tested as laboratory capacity increases.
Staff at Bridgedale House have been working 12-hour shifts, providing round-the-clock care. The ‘locked-in' volunteers created makeshift sleeping quarters around the building.
The atmosphere in the home has remained positive, Sarah-Jane said.
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“We're all singing and dancing,” she said. “We've been out on the patio enjoying the sunshine. Our day is very much the same - doing activities with them and so on. The only thing is, they can't see their families and we can't see ours, we don't go home at the end of the day. But thanks to technology we can video call with our families and keep in touch. It's worked really well, we're very fortunate that we're able to do this and we've got staff to do it.”
Bridgedale House stopped accepting visitors on March 13 and is likely to be on lockdown for some time.
“It could take months, we don't know,” said Sarah-Jane, 23, who has returned to her parents and fiancé in Nether Green. “I'm going home for a couple of weeks and then I could be coming back for another month."
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