Local nursing home manager urges caution in lifting restrictions

The lifting of restrictions on nursing homes from tomorrow (Tuesday) might be too much too soon according to the manager of a Roscrea facility.

Residents of nursing homes will be able to have two visitors together daily, vaccine certs won’t need to be presented and residents will also have a nominated support person.

Sandra Farrell of Patterson’s Nursing Home in Roscrea told Tipp FM that they won’t be easing all restrictions and visits will still need to be booked in.

She added that it was these measures, which prevented Covid from entering their nursing homes, and so she is not going to drop them all at once.

“All of a sudden, everything’s been lifted too fast too soon.

“We’ve had a very difficult two years in the nursing home sector and we’ve been fighting to keep Covid out of the nursing homes.

“Just to highlight, there’s still 225 outbreaks nationally in nursing homes, that’s nearly a third of nursing homes going through an outbreak phase and for some, it might be their second outbreak.

“For me, within Patterson’s Nursing Home, we will approach this with caution, we’ll continue to give FFP2 masks, which is a high tech mask, to the visitors and we’ll ask for a temperature check also.”