It’s been revealed that dozens of elderly residents at a village care home will have to wait a little longer to be immunised against COVID-19 because of an outbreak of the virus there.
MyCare, which runs Orchard House on Easthorpe Street, has confirmed that routine testing picked up its first positive case on New Year’s Eve, at which point everyone was immediately put into quarantine. However, the virus had already spread among other residents and staff at the fifty bed property, and four residents have since passed away, after testing positive.
Speaking to RUDDINGTON.info today, MyCare owner Paul Hearn says it’s a devastating situation for both the relatives and the care home employees who’ve strived so hard to keep the virus at bay: “We’ve had the strictest COVID secure procedures in place and only opened our doors to visitors during the periods where the restrictions were lower” he reveals. “We managed to stay virus-free for 315 days before this outbreak, and recently we were able to increase COVID testing to three times a week. We’re not sure how the virus got into the home but, of course, we are aware the latest variant is even more infectious.”
He adds: “I’d like to say that we are through it now, though. The staff have done really well – they are fantastic. There have been no recent cases at the home, and all residents come out of quarantine this Thursday, January 14th.”
Mr Hearn also confirmed that both MyCare’s other Ruddington residential care facilities, Balmore Country House on Loughborough Road and St Peter’s Care Home on Vicarage Lane, escaped the recent outbreak.
The cases at Orchard House are an especially mean twist of fate, given that the care home was on an NHS list to have all its residents and staff inoculated against COVID-19 today. Under the circumstances the Nottinghamshire vaccination team has been diverted elsewhere, but it’s thought they will be rescheduled for Ruddington very soon.
One of those hard at work administering the vaccines to local care homes is Ruddington’s Olivia Swift, of Lotus Maternity – a village entrepreneur and former midwife who rejoined the NHS to help out at the start of the pandemic. As a registered practitioner her role is mainly to draw up and prepare the vaccines, having been put in charge of the dosages, etc. However, she has also be doing some vaccinations herself.
Olivia is pictured drawing up the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, but she says the main rollout locally now is of the more recently approved Oxford-AstraZeneca one. The latter does not need to be stored at such low temperatures and so can be distributed more easily.
Currently the NHS is offering COVID-19 vaccines only to villagers who are most at danger from the Coronavirus. As well as people who live or work in our care homes, this means all residents aged over 80 and health and social care workers at high risk.
You can find more details >>HERE<<.
So far, the vaccine is being administered mainly from hospitals and pharmacies, as well as selected local vaccination centres run by GPs. The nearest vaccination centre to Ruddington at the moment is Gamston Community Hall but it’s hoped enough supplies will become available for jabs to be carried out in our village at Ruddington Medical Centre and/or Church House Surgery in due course.
Meantime, NHS Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Clinical Commissioning Group says you will be informed by letter when it’s your turn to have the COVID-19 vaccine. You’re asked not to contact the NHS or our local surgeries asking for a jab before receiving your personal notification. You can read more >>HERE<<.
