Studio44 Introduces - ellenor
Linda leads the clinical and nursing teams at ellenor hospice. Here she describes what it has been like for ellenor and their patients through the COVID-19 pandemic.
We have made it through the peak of the pandemic. We’ve achieved that because our team have been absolutely incredible in their dedication to their patients young and old – but also because local people have stepped up and supported us when we had to massively reduce our fundraising during the crisis. You’ve been so generous in helping us. Thank you so much.
Thanks to our loyal supporters during the crisis we were able to continue giving our unique care to local people when they needed it most. We were also able to keep in contact with all the children and families who rely on our children’s hospice services. Because of our amazing supporters these vulnerable children and their families made it through the most difficult, worrying and stressful time any of us can remember. But, honestly, this is a long, long way from being over. There are still uncertainties about the future of our fundraising and we are worried about what this could mean for our services.
We aren’t expecting to re-start all of our fundraising events and activities until early 2021. That means, for the rest of this year, we won’t have the income we have always relied on to fund our care. We need your help and the help of everyone in our community to ensure we can continue providing vital hospice care and support long into the future. Adult hospice patients with pre-existing conditions, people who have had to stay away since the crisis started still really need us. They’re desperate for nursing care to help with their symptoms or to access therapies that ease their pain and discomfort. Our team have worked incredibly hard to provide virtual therapy services like exercise and breathing classes. We are still having to provide care from a distance in most cases – and wear full PPE when we see a patient and I won’t lie, it’s stressful and exhausting for everyone involved.
For the children we care for – and their families – it’s been very, very hard. For most we’re a lifeline, the only place that can take over their child’s care to give their parents a break. We’ve been on the phone and online the whole time but COVID-19 has meant we can’t see most children face-to-face. Parents have really struggled to cope (every child we care for has had to ‘shield’ and so the whole family has been isolated at home). Our children’s care team have been brilliantly inventive in reaching out to these children with virtual play sessions, stories and even music therapy. We know that their siblings have been badly affected too and so we’ve created activities for them, even made up pamper packs of little things like bath bombs so they know that they are cared for and not forgotten.
But, throughout the darkest days of this crisis, there have been some wonderful, uplifting moments. We’ve been able to take adult COVID-19 patients from hospital and reunite them with their loved ones for the first time in months (because we can isolate them effectively here). We’ve supported families to have virtual contact with their loved ones at the hospice, because seeing faces is so important. And now we’re taking siblings of life-limited children out for the day for fun and to stretch their legs for the first time since the crisis.
Every single day we look at what we can do for each individual adult or child who turns to us for care. And every day we’ve created new ways of offering support and encouragement to those who need it the most. But the challenge hasn’t stopped. We know that the time between now and Christmas will be the hardest of our careers and we’re ready for that. But we cannot succeed without support from our local community. We are still here, we are still caring – and we still really need your help.
If you would like to learn more about the fantastic work the ellenor team do or want to get involved and support them or donate, then head over to their website.
