Hong Kong third wave: jolted by outbreak at home for the elderly, care workers tighten precautions
- After keeping Covid-19 at bay for months, care homes act to ensure safety of staff, residents
- Facility staff worry about being infected themselves, guard against bringing coronavirus into the workplace
Tending to the frail, elderly residents at the care home where she works, Lai Sui-lin feeds and bathes them, turns them in their beds, and changes their diapers.
She helps take care of 49 residents, most in their 80s and 90s, at the SAGE Bradbury Home for the Elderly in Aberdeen. Amid the new reality of the coronavirus, she has to check their temperature and disinfect their rooms every four hours, compared to just once a day previously. She also looks out for anyone with new symptoms.
The increased workload has left her tired, but she says the mental stress from the fear of infection makes it more challenging.
“I’m worried, and my family is worried, too. But as a service provider, I can’t stay away just because I’m scared,” she says. “I don’t know when this pandemic will be over, and I’m afraid that one day I may not be able to take it any more.”
If frontline care workers like Lai are anxious, it is because Hong Kong’s Covid-19 crisis has taken a turn for the worse, with a surge in new cases and an outbreak at the Kong Tai Care for the Aged Centre in Tsz Wan Shan, which left two people dead and more than 40 infected, including staff.
I’m worried, and my family is worried, too. But as a service provider, I can’t stay away just because I’m scared
The city’s care homes succeeded in keeping Covid-19 at bay until July 7, when an 85-year-old woman at the centre was confirmed to be infected. The outbreak there coincided with a third wave of coronavirus infections and a tightening of social distancing and other prevention measures.