“We have employees here who are almost monks, who go from home to work and from here to their homes, demonstrating an incredible spirit of giving, mission and responsibility. I think that when we talk about heroes and heroines, we have to look at these people, who, with the possibility of becoming infected, discipline themselves to act in this way».
The praise is made by Armindo Vicente, president of the Regional Secretariat of Misericórdias of Faro and provider of the Santa Casa da Misericórdia (SCM) of Vila do Bispo, in statements to Sul Informação, but it is foreseeable that it could come from other heads of Private Institutions of Social Solidarity (IPSS) in the Algarve, who so far – and as far as is known – managed to leave Covid-19 at the door.
“We are often talking about people who earn the minimum wage. If, when we pass this, there is no recognition at the highest level for these people, I think it will be a tremendous ingratitude and injustice," he said.
This appeal reveals what Armindo Vicente described to our newspaper: the last few weeks have been intense and demanding for those who work closely with senior citizens, the group most vulnerable to Covid-19. And, as has been said a lot in relation to other parts of the country, there are limitations in terms of protective equipment.
“It's a new situation, to which we are adapting day by day. We are trying to make this adaptation very quickly, introducing these procedures, guidelines and guidelines from national entities, mainly the tutelage, to improve the functioning of situations», said Armindo Vicente.
"We are very exposed, because we were not counting on this and we have a great lack of stock of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). This is notorious. Nobody is doing well, with regard to this type of material, when it comes to institutions», he revealed.
And if, in this case, there is no shortage of goods such as fuel or food, there has been «great difficulty in replacing stocks, with regard to masks, disinfectants and PPE”.
“These shortages are not minor, because we are in a pandemic. This is like a fire. The first one we have to protect is the one who goes to the fire fighting front», he defended.
“We have to function on that basis: we have to protect the employees, because they are the guarantor of the users' safety. That is our main priority: treating users and safeguarding them in this period”, added the coordinator of the Misericórdias at regional level.
And that is what we tried to do, suspending visits to homes right from an early stage of the epidemic in Portugal, a rule that «was so well applied that we walked for 14 days without any case in any household in the Algarve – by unless I have knowledge. This seems to indicate that we still had time to avoid greater evils in this reality».
“We restricted visits at a time when it was not yet mandatory for the entire country. The Misericórdias do Algarve immediately applied all the rule of no home visits. I can say that, external visits, there were none in the homes of Budens and Sagres and I think that it was not just us who quickly assimilated this and that we took this very, very literally, it was all the institutions», he stressed.
For things to continue to run smoothly, “it is essential” that entities that manage homes for the elderly have access to protective equipment. «We must have this reinforcement as soon as possible, both for the safety of users and for the safety of employees», defended Armindo Vicente, in the interview he gave to Sul Informação.
In this field, there is good news, as the Santa Casa da Misericórdia of Macau has already announced that it will donate one million surgical masks to its counterparts in Portugal, through the União das Misericórdias.
However, this material will not arrive until two or three weeks from now. In other words, it will come at the time for which the epidemic is expected to peak. Any reinforcement at this time when the number of cases continues to grow will always be welcome and is important».
Yesterday, at the usual press conference to assess the evolution of the Covid-19 epidemic in Portugal, António Sales, Secretary of State for Health, said that elderly homes are a concern and that the government area of Health is working with the areas of Defense and Labour, Solidarity and Social Security “in order to be able to give all the support and responses to these institutions”.
Armindo Vicente, for his part, guaranteed that “there is a spirit of mission, of cooperation with the Social Security Institute and with other entities. We will, with all our strength, try to provide the best possible service during this period, with as much security as we can, so that we can meet the requirements».
In addition to the lack of protective material, institutions also face shortages at the personnel level. «We, as happened with the hotel industry, already had a large deficit of employees. And the ones we had, we had to prepare them for this reality of a pandemic. Even those who say they were prepared, it's not true. It's a completely new situation," he told the Sul Informação Armindo Vicente.
This situation was further complicated by the indications received by the tutelage that the IPSS should work in a mirror, that is, with two employees for each function. Something that, guarantees the provider of the SCM of Vila do Bispo, is practically impossible to guarantee with the staff that the institutions have – not to mention the public funding they receive, of only 32 euros a day per user.
Thus, and in addition to protective equipment, including masks, gloves and disinfectant, volunteers are accepted, «preferably people with experience in caring for the elderly or in the cleaning area».
"Those interested can go directly to the institutions or join the volunteer scholarships that many municipalities have", he revealed.
Yesterday, Secretary of State António Sales also insisted on the importance of the IPSS that manage homes to have contingency plans.
As far as SCM is concerned, that's not a problem. "The great advantage of having a Union is that it soon put together a team, sent models of contingency plans to each of the institutions, which themselves created teams to prepare and implement the plans, adapting them to their reality", concluded Armindo Vincent.
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