“I got the message on Friday evening that three clients had died in one day. And I was here on Saturday morning and people just came out of the service. Then they just worked and at that moment I feel the pain, the sadness and the feeling of powerlessness. The team would like to make people better and some people succeed, but some do not, “says driver Schrander.
It does a lot to the driver to see how his staff must pull out all the stops with not always a satisfactory result. The Hengelo locations The Hof and Het Borsthuis of TMZ set up a special department for corona patients in early April. All positively tested residents are cared for by nurses there.
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No explanation
The driver does not have an explanation as to why many people died, especially in Hengelo. Schrander: “We have investigated the first infected client, the first infected employee, but it is all impossible to trace. So we are now dealing with the fact that we have had no infections for ten days, which is positive news. But we already have a group that is infected and who is either getting better or dying. “
Specialist Elderly Medicine Astrid Roek works as a doctor in this department in Het Hof: “I walk around in a protective suit, with a mask on. Residents hardly see that I am a doctor. Many of them are also demented, so they don’t understand either well more what is going on. ” Rook takes all precautions, but also tries not to lose sight of the human side.
“When we see that people can’t make it, we call the family. Then we make sure that we can say goodbye in the most dignified way possible, but it is of course very different from normal and that is sad.”
Honor hedge
TMZ staff have prepared poems to say goodbye to residents in this way. And a guard of honor is also formed when the deceased resident is led out of the room. “That is very impressive,” adds Schrander. “But it is also very important for our staff to be able to say goodbye to the residents in a good way.”
Recover
Astrid Roek finds it difficult to look ahead to how any relaxation may take shape in the nursing home. “We will have to look at that very carefully step by step.”
Driver Schrander knows that his staff will need a long time to recover after the corona crisis. “Because everyone is now working on adrenaline. There are 550 employees here who care for 300 residents, who have to recover from that.”
