...and one of the first to benefit is care home that’s just up the road
LIKE almost every care home in the land, they have endured some very troubling times here of late at The Lakes in Dukinfield, near Manchester.
So things were certainly looking up yesterday with the arrival of a Mail Force van, bringing locally-made personal protective equipment to the team of 90 staff who work here.
Covid-19 first darkened their door back in late March and, inevitably, some of those patients have not recovered.
The precise numbers of Coronavirus infections are uncertain simply because of the lack of testing in the care home sector but the statistics point to a sadly familiar story. There are currently 55 residents while 22 beds now lie empty. All had been occupied when the pandemic began.
However, the dedicated team of nurses and carers have managed to see off the virus. There are no symptoms among the residents and none among the staff, either. That is exactly the way manager Annette Peace wants to keep things.
With your help she can – and that is why she and her team were thrilled when a Mail Force van turned up yesterday bringing a consignment of a thousand hospital aprons, 100 visors and dozens of all-in-one coveralls. And they were even more delighted to learn that most of it had been made, not in the Far East, but just up the road in Lancashire.
‘We always try to use local businesses when we can. So it’s great to know that this has come from the area,’ said Annette yesterday.
A trained nurse, she has been at The Lakes for 21 years – and has been struck down with the virus herself during this pandemic. One of her recurring worries, has been sourcing personal protective equipment.
‘We kept getting conflicting advice on what to wear and when – and it is still changing,’ she said.
‘It did make it hard to plan. It also meant that, at times, we were running out of some items in the morning and wondering whether there would be fresh supplies in the afternoon.’
The local social services from Tameside council, she said, had frequently come to the rescue at the last moment and she said support from the community had been ‘wonderful’. However, surveying the latest delivery from the Mail Force van, she added: ‘Cake is always lovely, of course. But this stuff is life-saving.’