A Roscommon care home that was subject of a recent HIQA report has commended its staff for their work during a major Covid-19 outbreak earlier this year.
Oakwood Private Nursing Home offers long and short term care for 56 adults over the age of 18 including people with a diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease or dementia.
A HIQA inspection in January of this year found that following an initial outbreak of covid, infection control procedures were not being maintained to an acceptable standard.
A subsequent inspection a month later saw the outbreak spread among 14 staff and 50 residents.
The Health Information and Quality Authority stated that emergency measures were needed in areas including management, staffing and record keeping to ensure resident safety.
In a statement to Shannonside FM News, centre management has confirmed that all issues identified by inspectors have now been rectified.
They state that due to high staff infection rates, they were forced to 'prioritise care for residents over administration.'
Oakwood Private nursing home management say staff put the well-being of residents over their own and worked in extremely difficult circumstances.
You can read previous article here.
You can read the full statement below.
As you will have seen, the inspection took place during a significant outbreak of COVID-19 at the nursing home. Needless to say this was a great disappointment to us all, as we had succeeded in keeping all our residents completely virus-free throughout the pandemic up to that.
Among those who tested positive were 14 members of staff which was a source of considerable additional pressure in the situation. This meant, in instances, we had to temporarily prioritise care for our residents over administration.
That has since been rectified, as have all other negative findings in the report published on May 19th.
But we are gratified that despite such unprecedented pressure at the nursing home on February 2nd last the report was still able to conclude; "The inspectors observed that staff interaction with residents throughout the day was patient and caring. The atmosphere in the centre was calm and relaxed. Residents spoken with appeared content and at ease."
We are also grateful to our staff who, in such difficult circumstances, demonstrated yet again that their commitment above all was to the general well-being of our residents.
Thankfully, we have been COVID-19 free for some time now and, hopefully, will remain so, as measures are in place to avoid a recurrence.
