Visitor pod opens at care home to allow residents see loved ones
A new £12,000 visitor pod has opened at a care home to enable residents to safely see their families.
Essington Manor Care Home welcomed its first visitors to the new pod yesterday.
The home which cares for 43 residents, most of whom have Alzheimers or Dementia, have not had a resident test positive for Covid since the start of the pandemic.
Gemma Hird, operations manager, said: "We're a family-run business, we've been open 25 years this year. We've been resident Covid-free for 12 months now, we've not had one resident test positive.
"We bought the visitor pod so we could make visiting as safe as possible.
"It's got a security screen and all the gardens have been done so we have wheelchair access.
"We wanted to wait for residents to have their second vaccine before we allow contact.
"It has been difficult as there has been no visitors. We have done window visits and Zoom calls, that kind of thing to ensure they aren't lonely and we've put on more activities during the day than we have ever done before.
"The staff have all worked tremendously hard through it all.
"We're really pleased with the outcome of the visitors pod, it looks great.
"We ordered it and within four weeks it was built. It's got a lovely backdrop and heaters and electrics and hearing aid point, it's really high tech.
"The residents are really looking forward to using it.
"Their safety comes first, some of our residents are really poorly, we have cancer patients and people with Alzheimers and Dementia.
"If Covid was to come into the care home we would lose the majority of our residents."
