Mail Force PPE for home run by nuns
Early lockdown has helped keep residents virus-free
A CARE home run by an order of nuns has kept coronavirus-free after imposing a lockdown ten days early.
Now the 36 residents at the Presentation Sisters Care Centre – many of whom are in their 80s and 90s, including several retired nuns – are being helped to keep safe, thanks to Mail Force.
The care home has been one of the first to receive a donation of Turkish-made gowns used to prevent person-to-person transmission of coronavirus. Since March 13, the home has sealed itself off from the outside world to prevent the virus getting in – and remains in lockdown despite the easing of restrictions around Britain.
All visits are banned and residents do not go out. Staff, while allowed to go home, are minimising their contact with anyone outside of work. That decision, and an enhanced cleaning regime, has meant there has not been a single case. The adjoining convent, which is home to 25 sisters, is following the same rules. Members of the order can join church services via iPads.
In a message to Daily Mail readers, many of whom have kindly donated to the Mail Force charity, Sister Eileen Keating said: ‘Thank you so very much for your wonderful gifts. I’m so amazed at people’s generosity. It makes you stop and think – here are readers, just ordinary people, doing this. There is so much generosity out there – we don’t always hear about it.’
She added: ‘We have staff who are dedicated and have forgotten themselves for the greater good.
The situation has brought out the best of people. The home is open to all – you don’t have to have a faith to be there and 99 per cent of the staff are non-Catholic.
‘It is our duty, as religious people, as Christians, to give them the very best care.’
Jayne Carnall manages the home – a former hotel in Matlock, Derbyshire, which was later used as a girls’ boarding school run by the same order of nuns. She said: ‘We found out the other day from local doctors that we were one of only a few care homes in north Derbyshire which have had no cases.
‘We consider ourselves thankful and extremely fortunate that... we have created a very sterile environment in the home.’
Praising readers for their donations to the Mail Force charity, Mrs Carnall said: ‘A situation like this sees humanity at its best and we are very grateful for what we have received.’
The Mail Force delivery was dropped off on the care home’s outdoor terrace to comply with its rigorous rules.
Resident Audrey Crehan, 89, a retired cook and great grandmother, said: ‘I think it’s fantastic people are helping in this way. It’s a great idea.’
The home is the only one in the UK run by the Presentation Sisters, an order of Roman Catholic nuns founded in Cork, Ireland, in the 18th Century.
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