SIBU, March 11: Home nursing provides better safety for elderly folk during this Covid-19 pandemic.
A case in point was when a total of 46 residents of two nursing homes here were infected with the virus on Feb 14. One of them passed away due to the infection.
“We are taking palliative care of elderly folk in their own home. Moreover, we are nursing only one person at a time and not in the group, so their safety is not compromised especially during this pandemic,” said an operator of a home nursing, Christina Elbie, 31.
A mother with a three-year-old daughter, Christina has started the business five years ago after gaining experience from a private medical centre. She has five well-trained nurses where four of them are part-timers.
As of now, she has already provided healthcare for 42 elderly where some of them had passed on due to old age.
As a caregiver, she postulated that she and her staff nurses are in good health, expected of all who are involving in this line of career.
“We are taking care of an elderly person 24-hour a day, so each of us is working on shift. We try to give the best service to our clients though sometimes their children may demand more from us,” she added.
Christina explained that home nursing is not an easy job but a tiring one as they are handling old folk where 16 of them are either bedridden or suffering from walking difficulties due to strokes.
“We have to clean them up, bathe them, feed them, help them with pampers and dress them up. We also have to clean their rooms and beds. Some of them are aggressive where helping them wearing pamper is a difficult task,” she said.
For the clients whose children are working outstation, the nurses are expected to do extra such as helping to buy pampers and later claim from their clients’ children.
“Some of our clients’ children are staying with them while others are not as they are working elsewhere. Those children working outstation will always call us to check on the wellbeing of their parents. They can be a bit fussy at times but we have to take it as part of the nature of our job,” she said.
On her patients, Christina said some like to chat as they are lonely and want extra attention. There are also others who like to tell stories, especially on their younger days.
“My clients are of mixed races but there are more from the Chinese community and some from the Iban community. I have more male patients than female,” said Christina.
Though the job can drain them physically, she said it is, after all, a rewarding one – not so much on the fee but the satisfaction deriving when they see happy faces of their elderly clients. — DayakDaily
