SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITY LIFE KEEPS CAMPHILL COVID-FREE

ALL residents and staff at the Camphill communities in Duffcarrig and Ballymoney have reason to celebrate as they reflect on the challenging time of the Covid-19 crisis, having recorded no infections during the height of the pandemic.

Speaking to manager at Duffcarrig and Ballymoney, Brendan Byrne, he said that keeping Camphill Covid-free involved a high level of commitment from all involved.

‘ The last couple of months have been very difficult for the health and social care sector. In Duffcarrig, we have 24 residents and in Ballymoney we have six, so that’s 30 people in total. We have a team of nearly 50 people as staff, and they absolutely pulled out all the stops.

‘We have 60 acres of land, and that in itself enabled us to naturally cocoon and protect the residents and that lends itself in our favour. Our model of care, our principles and practice here kept Covid-19 at bay. This combined with a fantastic effort from all our staff allowed us to keep it out.’

Mr Byrne is hopeful that more people will take notice of the Camphill community model of care, reflected in the fact that there have been no infections.

‘We’re very much a sustainable community, and we’ve a green agenda which is very important in terms of social care in Covid-19. What these last few months have clearly highlighted to me, and the evidence would support this, that this is the model of care that works and is very good, based on the fact that the residents live in the grounds of a sustainable community.

‘During this time, in terms of the residents’ behaviour, we have had no incidents. We had cases of boredom, but we didn’t have challenging behaviour and there were no outbursts. Our community life continued; we still made our milk, cheese, apple juice and still produced our home-made products.

‘Over the last six weeks, we wanted to fill their time and give them something meaningful to do every day and that’s when we started the garden competition. We’re lucky to live in a very beautiful place and have plenty of space.’

The only challenge for the team came about when it was time to conduct testing for Covid-19.

‘I myself found it very uncomfortable, but for someone who finds communication tough and these things challenging to understand, it can be very difficult.

‘We sat down with the residents and engaged with them in key working sessions and we explained at a most basic level what to expect and how the process would work. Even if people here can’t communicate verbally, because we have an intimate understanding of the people we support, we know whether they are consenting or not and peoples’ consent was upheld,’ said Brendan.

He explained that the all staff and the majority of residents have been tested.

‘We were all negative, but we respected that decision if some residents didn’t want to engage in the process. We would have had a lot of risk management, infection control and trust was important. We had to trust each other that we were following the protocols because it wasn’t the residents that were going to bring in the infection; they were staying and weren’t going out. It was the team that would have brought it in to them so trust was a big part, but also working together and the residents trusting us that we were working on their behalf.’

Brendan said that personal protective equipment (PPE) was not an issue.

‘We were very thankful to the people who gave us donations of PPE. If we had have had an outbreak, we obviously would have gone through PPE a lot quicker but for now we’re very well stocked.’

Looking ahead, the team get regular updates and will continue to implement the most up-todate health guidelines.

‘We have a created risk management protocol, and have standard operating procedures in place for families to visit but our residents’ care is at the centre of that. We’re not taking any risks for the residents or for any visiting families, so it’s still very much within the HSE guidelines.’