Alan Fenton - Community Matron in Inner City Bradford and Lucie Fenton – Ward Manager at Overgate Hospice

Lucie Fenton:
"We’ve been preparing for the onset of covid-19 since the onset in February but a huge problem for us at Overgate is not being able to open our shops and with no income stream from any of our events we’re massively down on our funding and the funding from central government doesn’t cover at all the loss of revenue. But we have been absolutely overwhelmed by the support of our community – it has been amazing. We’ve had 100 pairs of scrubs made and donated by Carla Bradbury which would have cost over £2000 . All the running groups within the Calderdale area: Northowram Pumas, Sowerby Bridge Snails, Stainland Lions have all done huge fund raising for us. Dale Castell who is the son of one of our amazing auxiliary nurses, Janet Turner, raised over £10,000 on a Saturday night house music watch party on Facebook. All this just lets us continue to do special palliative care to all those people in Calderdale who need it. We did have a dip whereby people weren’t admitted to the hospice because I think those shielding patients were scared but at the moment we’re full – all our patients are needing specialist end of life care and that’s what we’re here for"

Alan Fenton :
"Patients are mainly older patients with multiple comorbidities (the presence of one or more additional conditions co-occurring with a primary condition). Most of my patients are shielding and are very scared of what this disease might mean to them. I am supporting them all, using different ways to review them to keep them safe. My team have been affected and some of my colleagues have had the virus. We are trying to reduce staff contact with each other but keep the team together."

2.5.20