Terri Gazi is Lead Nurse at City Hospice and tells us “I just wanted to say hello to everyone and explain how the Coronavirus is affecting the work of City Hospice”.
These are difficult and strange times for everyone.
We do understand how anxious people must be feeling because we feel it too. I just want to reassure everyone that the clinical team continues to work as hard as we can in the current climate of uncertainty. I want to share with you how the Coronavirus is affecting the work of City Hospice.
All of the health services are experiencing a high demand . This includes the of work of care support staff who are invaluable in what they do by going into the homes of many dependent people. Everyone is doing their best to keep these services running . However, we must accept that there will be gaps that cannot be filled. We continue to refer our patients to these services and will always keep you updated on any problems that occur.
We continue to work from the City Hospice building visiting patients in their own homes.
Patients are being encouraged and given a choice if they prefer to have digital consultations via phone apps. However, we encourage all newly referred patients to meet us at least once face to face. There is a little change to our appearance-we now wear gloves, mask and an apron. This is both for your protection and ours.
We continue to work from the City Hospice building visiting patients in their own homes.
I have been asked “why do you go into work-is it not safer to work from home?” For many people the answer is yes but for the key workers in City Hospice this is just not possible. Firstly; all of our most update information is at City hospice protected by strict data protection law.
It is important for us to have full medical information available to all of our key team when dealing with patients and families. A patient’s condition can change daily and we need to be up to date in to give you the best possible care. Therefore we can reassure all our patients and relatives we have continued to protect all sensitive confidential information . We are also well placed to answer your queries.
…….We’re also there to support each other
Secondly; and more importantly we are there to support one another. This is very important in these difficult times for the mental well being of all our staff. So just to help them along they have the chance to do a relaxation session every week. Plus share all the cakes, flowers and chocolates kindly donated to us.
We have a very strict health policy in place to help protect us all. This means if anyone of our staff has signs of illness or are living with someone who becomes unwell they are not allowed to come into the building. They must self isolate following current public health guidelines
We also have strict infection control measures in place to minimise the risk to any of our staff members.
Our dedicated doctors continue to work hard, and along with many of the nurses they have given up annual leave to come into work.
We have staff who, for a variety of reasons cannot come into work, but I know many of them find this frustrating and want to return to work as soon as they can. At the moment we are short of nurses but others have given up their leave to help.
Our social worker and welfare rights officer continue to help deal with social and financial worries. Our occupational therapist continues to advise and support patients and their families enabling them to remain safely in their own homes.
The counselling service is under particular pressure, but we are doing our best to catch up with everyone who is waiting for contact from our counselling team. We would like to thank the kindness of so many people including local business, supermarkets and many more.
I would like to thank all of the team that I work with they are fantastic. A great big thank you to our clinical admin support team we would be lost without them.
Take care of yourselves and we will also do our very best to take care of you.
Terri
