Elderly residents combine pen and paper with social media to keep in touch
Staff at St Vincent’s Residential Home came up with the plan to reassure families of residents facing lockdown.
Residents at a care home for the elderly which is under Covid-19 lockdown have sent messages to their loved ones combining old-fashioned pen and paper with social media.
Staff at St Vincent’s Retirement Home for ex-service personnel in Ryde, Isle of Wight, came up with the plan to take photographs of their residents holding messages for their loved ones which were emailed and posted on Facebook.
She said: “The idea came about on Monday when Boris (Johnson) started his 5pm speech on TV, it was all doom and gloom and the staff were all quite concerned for the residents.
“As we cannot have any visits from families, we thought we would use old-fashioned pen and paper because that is what the residents are used to and sent the pictures out by email and put them on Facebook as well.”
Describing the response, she said: “It’s gone wild, for the families they have the reassurance that their loved ones are safe, fed, warm, happy, smiling, and they are not letting the fact that families cannot visit have a big impact on them.
“The families are over the moon, we have had nothing but positive feedback, people have been quite emotional.”
