Staff on the front line ‘forgotten’
BRITAIN’S army of home care workers are facing a drastic shortage of PPE.
Staff who look after the elderly, disabled and vulnerable in their own homes face the risk of contracting and spreading the virus as they struggle to find masks, aprons and gloves.
The UK has 601,000 in-home carers, yet they have largely been forgotten.
Last night one home carer told how he gave up his job because he was worried about spreading coronavirus. Former London Underground employee Roy Cary, 62, of Sussex, quit three weeks ago after his private employer started to run out of PPE.
He said: “We had no training on how to protect ourselves when the virus first emerged. We eventually got paper masks and aprons as thin as plastic bags.
“I began to worry about spreading it to others or getting the virus from someone else. The whole care sector has been ignored in this crisis.”
Last night a home care agency boss told how the sector is struggling to buy PPE as prices shoot up.
Simon Davison, who runs Opieka in Brough, East Riding, said: “My usual supplier says there will not be any gloves until the end of May and, even if you can get your hands on PPE, it’s getting more and more expensive.”
Another agency boss told how she caught coronavirus after visiting a client in her 80s who had just been released from hospital. Mum-of-one Heather Carter, 38, whose clients live in London’s worst-hit area of Lambeth and Southwark, said: “I started getting sick and now can barely breath.
“Home workers are so undervalued.”