Life during lock-down

May 1, 2020

Nial Joyce gives an update on life inside Sussex’s leading dementia care centre, during lock-down.

We’ve had singing, music, baking, reading, too many Easter Eggs and we’ve really fallen in love with our ipads. Mostly though we have experienced remarkable kindness and the absolute best of humanity during these last weeks.

 

 

The lockdown has, of course, prevented many relatives visiting their loved ones with us, but we are assuring everyone that our residents are continuing to live their daily lives – taking part in activities such as singing, painting, baking and enjoying the garden. We have been really lucky with the weather up to now. The sunshine has allowed everyone to enjoy our garden and the fabulous spring blooms.

Facetime and zoom have really come to the rescue and are incredibly useful for families and friends to chat to our residents. We know how important it is that people stay in touch with their friends and relatives at Clifden House. It also provides reassurance to relatives, who have entrusted the care of their loved ones to us. We continue to receive lots of photos via our facebook page and by email and we, in turn, show these to the residents. It brings lots of smiles all round so we encourage relatives to keep this up. Of course, our residents also have the companionship of each other and our care teams too.

A big thank you needs to go to our staff, who have all been wonderfully cheery, motivated and doing whatever needs to be done.

At Easter time we received an incredibly generous surprise delivery. Boxes of the most fabulous Easter eggs arrived at our door with compliments from our local Morrison’s supermarket. The surprise was almost as good as the eating! Thank you for thinking of us Morrison’s.

Then a couple of weekends ago, Domino’s Pizza sent us some tasty pizzas. We’d like to say how appreciated this was. It kept the care team going across both shift rotations.

People say they can’t wait for it to be over, but there are many beautiful aspects to be appreciated too during this time – people have been kinder to each other, smiling at each other and really looking out for each other – I hope society can keep hold of this going forward.

Clifden House Dementia Care Centre, Seaford has been delivering exceptional care in Sussex for 50 years. As a leader in specialist dementia care it aims to facilitate each person to continue to live a fulfilling and active life with privacy, dignity and security.

www.clifdenhouse.co.uk T: 01323 896460

 

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