PHARCS in Focus: How a residential home for the elderly in Dominica is dealing with COVID-19

Founder/CEO of PHARCS, Marie-Therese Junkere talks about protocols put in place for the residents and staff due to COVID-19.

The health, safety and wellbeing of our residents and staff are our top priorities.  The elderly, especially those in care home settings, are among those at high risk of becoming infected with the COVID-19 virus.

From the outset, PHARCS monitored closely what was happening across the world with the COVID-19 virus.  On 1st March 2020, the first cases of the COVID-19 virus was declared in the Caribbean region – St Marteen and St Barts.  On 3rd March 2020, a meeting was held with all staff and PHARCS prepared a detailed information leaflet for staff and for relatives of its residents reassuring them that the virus was not on island but that PHARCS had started putting together a plan of action to protect its staff and residents if and when the virus arrives on island.  On 5th March 2020, Martinique declared its first 2 cases and PHARCS and at around the same time the Caribbean Health Agency (“CARPHA”) upgraded a risk of transmission of the COVID-19 virus in the region from “low” to “moderate to high”.  PHARCS took the following immediate action:-

–         Installation of a sanitising station for use by all staff and visitors before entering the building.

–         Restricted visiting for relatives and friends.  Enforcing the requirement to sign in upon arrival for tracing purposes should this prove necessary.

–         Staff required to change clothing they travelled to work in upon arrival.

–         Supplying protective equipment for staff and protocols for frequent hand washing for both staff and residents.

–         Ensuring that all staff were aware of the symptoms and how to monitor them in residents and staff.

–         Encouraging staff to stay at home is unwell and reassuring them that salaries would be paid in full.

–         Training meeting held with all staff and Action Plan handed to all staff setting out protocols to be followed now and upon first confirmed case being reported on island.

On the day that the first confirmed case was reported in Dominica, all visiting was suspended at PHARCS and the Action Plan was activated as follows:-

–         Transportation arrangements put in place for staff to be picked up from home to work and work to home so as to avoid the need to use public transport.

–         PHARCS closed its doors to all visitors and wrote to all family members to inform them of the decision.

–         arrangements put in place for accommodation to be made available for staff to live on premises to further reduce the risk of transmission.

–         All staff obliged to notify management of any contact with anyone with flu or flu-like symptoms and to remain at home should they feel unwell.

–         All staff required to wear masks whilst working with residents.

–         All deliveries to be sanitised outside being brought into the building.

–         Suspension of all new admissions until further notice.

Since 23 March 2020 staff have been living for periods of up to nine days at a time at the facilities.  Staff are collected from their homes and brought to PHARCS and at the end of their period of living on site, are returned home by private transport some as far away as the Kalinago Territory, Grand Bay and Morne Prosper.

The sole objective of PHARCS is to reduce as much as possible the risk of transmission of this dreaded virus to our residents and staff.

The decision to close PHARCS to all visitors was a very difficult decision to make because many of our residents have relatives who visit often and it is important for the wellbeing of the residents that they have visitors.

In taking the decision to close PHARCS off to the public, we had to weigh up in the balance the pros and cons of continuing to allow visitors – even with restricted visiting times – against the risk of even one person becoming infected at either of our facilities.

The cons by far outweighed the pros of continuing to allow visitors.  At PHARCS, we have a range of persons with different physical and mental conditions.  A large proportion of our residents have pre-existing medical conditions such as hypertension and diabetes and this put them at increased risk of succumbing to the virus if they were to become infected.

Numerous care homes across the world and especially in the US, Italy, Spain and UK have lost many residents to this dreadful virus.  At PHARCS, we are doing everything humanly possible to reduce the risk of any member of staff or resident becoming infected with this virus and this was the driving force behind the decision to close our doors to the public.

We do, however, recognise the importance of our residents and their families to be able to keep in touch, especially since many of our residents’ immediate family members live overseas.

We are sending out regular updates to family members with photographs of their loved ones as well as encouraging them to keep in touch by telephone or video calls.

We are especially thankful to our staff who have made huge sacrifices, taking the decision as a team to remain on site with our residents for long periods to reduce the risk of transmission of this virus.  This is especially important for the residents, given that they are not having visits from family and friends at present.  The atmosphere at the facilities is amazing.