Carers’ lack of PPE has couple living in fear

AN elderly couple have been forced to cut their home care help due to fear of infection as their carers can’t access personal protective equipment.

Evelyn Wainwright, 74, and her husband, Terry, 84, from Togher, Co. Cork, are both in wheelchairs and require daily assistance but said they were so ‘appalled’ that their carers couldn’t find masks, gloves or aprons, before coming to their home, they had to rethink their care.

Evelyn, who had polio, and her husband, who suffered a stroke 23 year ago and also suffers from the lung condition, COPD as well as diabetes, said they are asking their carers to only come on the days where they are the first people on their list to avoid cross-contamination from other houses.

The couple have two daughters who are now in isolation as they were both abroad, and they have asked a neighbour to do their shopping for them which has also eased their stress. They said at the moment they are ‘coping’ and taking ‘each day at a time’.

Terry requires a lot of assistance in terms of bathing and dressing which Evelyn can’t provide.

Evelyn told the Irish Mail on Sunday: ‘We would usually have home care five times a week, but I’ve reduced that to two times a week because they were coming in with no masks, washing and dressing him...

‘I asked them if they could get them and they told me they tried, and tried all the pharmacies as well, but couldn’t get them. I had a word with my GP and asked him if I was being overly cautious and he said “you most certainly are not” .’

Evelyn’s GP supplied her with some PPE, and she added: ‘He’s very caring.’

She said: ‘One of our girls [a carer] asked three weeks ago for a mask, apron and gloves and all she got was the gloves. She went and found a mask herself.’

Evelyn said that in the instances where they are the first people visited by the carers, there isn’t too much of an issue but if they are not first, the carer could have seen four or five other people that day without proper PPE.

Evelyn has limited mobility and bathing and dressing Terry is done with ‘great difficulty’.

Despite the current situation, Evelyn said: ‘We just have to take each day as it comes, that’s always been my motto.’