A SOCIAL care leader is urging people not to not to visit relatives living in care homes in Pembrokeshire unless it’s “absolutely essential” so they can protect their loved ones from coronavirus.
Mario Kreft MBE, the chair of Care Forum Wales, said care homes were “safe havens” for elderly and vulnerable people so it was vital to ensure the highest possible standards of infection control.
Mr Kreft, who also owns eight care homes in Wrexham and Caernarfon, is also calling on the Hywel Dda Health Board to cut bureaucracy so that older patients who no longer need hospital care can be transferred to care homes.
Expediting that process would help free up hospital beds and allow the discharged patients to receive care in a more appropriate setting.
He said Care Forum Wales was in regular contact with Welsh Government health experts and they were passing on the latest scientific advice to their 400 plus members across Wales.
Mr Kreft said: “In my organisation, Pendine Park, we’re already significantly reducing the number people entering homes and we’ve introduced washing stations outside each of them.
“We’ve got to do everything that we can to ensure that people are safe, and I would say this to anybody who wants to visit a loved one in a care home to think very, very carefully because totally accidentally this virus could be transmitted.
“Simply put, not visiting care homes is likely to save people’s lives.
“I think it’s very important that we recognise that care homes will be a safe haven.
“There has been a lot of talk about cocooning people. It makes a lot of sense as a principle to use our care homes.
“There are over 20,000 people in care homes in Wales and over 500,000 in the UK.
“We need to ensure that those organisations are properly supported to do the job that they’re there to do and that is to protect and safeguard the people that they care for, and their staff.
“The other important thing now is to make sure that we get as many people into the sector where there is capacity.
“It is important to relieve pressure on the NHS which is already pretty much at capacity.
