Author: Belinda Howell

18 November 2021

We want to advise you that the COVID-19 booster vaccination will be offered to residents at Whiddon Kyogle on 20 January 2022. The vaccinations will be conducted onsite at Whiddon Kyogle. We are starting discussions with residents and resident representatives and now have consent forms available. Please speak to the Director Care Services if you have any questions.

Thank you.

18 November 2021

We are very pleased to welcome back visitors to Whiddon Moree as of tomorrow, Friday, 19 November. We understand that this has been a difficult time and we thank you for your patience, and for helping to keep everyone safe, while the number of COVID-19 cases in the region was high.

As we welcome you back, we’d like to remind you of some important guidelines from NSW Health for visiting our care home.

Residents are permitted to have two fully vaccinated visitors aged 12 years and over, plus two children under 12 years per day. 

Please note that visits must be pre-booked with our team and visitors must ensure:

• they have a rapid antigen test onsite when they arrive
• they wear a surgical mask
• they have received a second dose of a COVID vaccination at least 14 days prior to their visit (visitors over 12 years old)
• where visits include a child under 12, visits are strongly recommended to take place in an outdoor area, children should wear a mask and the child should have a rapid antigen test just before the visit – this can be done onsite at Whiddon Moree
• they practice good hand hygiene and social distancing
• meet in the resident’s room and not in common areas
• they check-in through our visitor check-in system and the Service NSW app
• they do not visit if they have been to any COVID-19 hotspot venues or locations, or to any interstate locations of concern
• they do not visit if they are unwell and have any COVID-19 symptoms – fever (37. 5°C or higher) or symptoms of COVID-19
• they do not visit if they are a close contact of a person with confirmed COVID-19 and are within their self-isolation period
• they do not visit if they live in a household with a person who is currently self-isolating
• they do not visit if they are waiting for a COVID-19 test result

We thank you for your understanding and patience.

12 November 2021

We have received advice from Queensland Health that there is an escalating risk of cases in the regions of Goondiwindi and Gold Coast, which now includes areas around Beaudesert in the Metro South region. As a result, we have been encouraged to ask visitors to once again wear masks when visiting Whiddon Beaudesert Star. We support this recommendation as it provides an important safety measure for residents, employees and visitors at this time.

Please do remember to book your visit in advance and follow our visitation guidelines.

Thank you for your understanding as we help keep everyone in our family safe.

8 November 2021

Dear Team,

Firstly, I want to thank you for all that you do in caring for the residents here at Whiddon Easton Park. I know that the past 18 months have been a very difficult time for all. Having to navigate the pandemic and the additional pressures of wearing PPE and the RA-Testing, along with your own personal challenges that COVID-19 has brought, could not have been easy. I want you to know that we appreciate everything you have done, and continue to do in keeping everyone safe.

Recently, many of you have had to face additional pressures due to staff shortages. These shortages are due to a variety of reasons including:

1. Single Site Working Arrangements
2. Staff being identified as close or casual contacts of a COVID-19 positive person
3. Planned leave (Please note that planned leave is only approved if there is staff to cover these shifts, at the time these were approved the shifts could be covered)

However, it is disappointing to see that over the last week (Monday 1- Sunday 7 November), we experienced multiple staff calling in sick, applying for emergency leave or staff cancelling their shifts. While we accept that people get sick and that there are emergencies that may arise from time to time, the number of staff that didn’t work their rostered shifts last week was unprecedented. This resulted in additional stress on colleagues.

While we did as much as we could to replace the staff that were absent, unfortunately, we could not replace all shifts. We do thank everyone who did go the extra mile to support the residents during this time.

As a reminder to all staff, if you do apply for leave, we will only approve your leave if there is a sufficient number of staff to cover your shift. Now that both our state and international borders are open again, I do expect to see an increase number of leave applications.

Please be assured that we will do our very best to accommodate your requests, however we will not be able to approve leave if there is not a sufficient number of staff to replace you. We will offer you an alternative time, however our priority needs to be resident care.

Thank you for your understanding.

Kind Regards

Sharon Fletcher
Operations Manager (Easton Park)

4 November 2021

With a number of COVID-19 cases identified in the Moree area, as a precaution, for now, until we know more about this situation, we are only allowing visits under exceptional circumstances such as end of life visits or to provide essential care services. It is our highest priority to keep our residents, families and employees safe and well.

We genuinely understand that this is a difficult time and we want you to know that our teams are working hard to keep you connected to your loved ones through phone and video calls wherever possible.

We also have our new app, Whiddon Connect, that we encourage you to download. You can book in video chats with your loved one on this app by contacting our team. You can also see COVID-19 updates and photos of your loved one enjoying activities. For more information on Whiddon Connect click here.

We thank you for your understanding at this time.

2 November 2021

We are pleased to advise you that NSW Health have provided further information on visitation to aged care homes.  We want to share what this means for visiting Whiddon Easton Park. We also wanted to remind you of some important guidelines when visiting, to help keep everyone in our family safe.

Please note the new guidelines below:

• Residents are permitted to have two fully vaccinated visitors aged 12 years and over plus two children aged under 12 years per day
• Visitors aged 12 years and over must have received a second dose of a COVID vaccination at least 14 days prior to their visit.
• Children under 12 years are permitted to visit, provided they are accompanied by a fully vaccinated person
• Where visits include a child under 12, where possible, visits are to take place in an outdoor area and the child should wear a mask
• Visits must not take place in communal areas
• All visitors must wear a surgical mask while visiting indoors. For reasons when masks can be removed please see Additional Advice – Mandatory mask wearing.

Please note that you must:

• pre-book your visits – you will not be able to visit without a booking. Please note that the number of visitors allowed into a home at any one time may be restricted to enable management of capacity limits.
• have a rapid antigen test before entering a care home (all visitors)
• refrain from visiting if you have COVID-19 symptoms
• refrain from visiting you are a close or casual contact of a person with confirmed COVID-19, unless they have completed their isolation and testing requirements
• refrain from visiting if you are a fully vaccinated person who has been overseas in the last 7 day. Additionally, they must show evidence of a negative COVID-19 test taken on or after day 7 following their arrival
• refrain from visiting if you are not vaccinated and have been overseas in the last 14 days.
• refrain from visiting if you are waiting for a COVID-19 test result
• practice good hand hygiene and socially distance
• wear a surgical mask
• check in to the Service NSW app AND Whiddon’s check-in system when you visit

COVID-19 vaccine booster dose

Please note that the government are rolling out a national vaccine COVID-19 vaccine booster program for people in residential aged care. Every resident living in an aged care facility who has received two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine will be offered a Pfizer vaccine booster dose at least six months after their second vaccination. The team at the care home will start, or may have already started, to discuss this with you or your loved one and to gain written consent for the vaccination. Please find further information on the COVID-19 vaccine booster by clicking here.

Thank you

2 November 2021

We are pleased to advise you that NSW Health have provided further information on visitation to aged care homes.  We want to share what this means for visiting a Whiddon aged care home. We also wanted to remind you of some important guidelines when visiting, to help keep everyone in our family safe.

Please note the new guidelines below:

• Residents are permitted to have two fully vaccinated visitors aged 12 years and over plus two children aged under 12 years per day
• Visitors aged 12 years and over must have received a second dose of a COVID vaccination at least 14 days prior to their visit.
• Children under 12 years are permitted to visit, provided they are accompanied by a fully vaccinated person
• Where visits include a child under 12, where possible, visits are to take place in an outdoor area and the child should wear a mask
• Visits must not take place in communal areas
• All visitors must wear a surgical mask while visiting indoors. For reasons when masks can be removed please see Additional Advice – Mandatory mask wearing.

Please note that you must:

• pre-book your visits – you will not be able to visit without a booking. Please note that the number of visitors allowed into a home at any one time may be restricted to enable management of capacity limits.
• refrain from visiting if you have COVID-19 symptoms
• refrain from visiting you are a close or casual contact of a person with confirmed COVID-19, unless they have completed their isolation and testing requirements
• refrain from visiting if you are a fully vaccinated person who has been overseas in the last 7 day. Additionally, they must show evidence of a negative COVID-19 test taken on or after day 7 following their arrival
• refrain from visiting if you are not vaccinated and have been overseas in the last 14 days.
• refrain from visiting if you are waiting for a COVID-19 test result
• practice good hand hygiene and socially distance
• wear a surgical mask
• check in to the Service NSW app AND Whiddon’s check-in system when you visit

COVID-19 vaccine booster dose

Please note that the government are rolling out a national vaccine COVID-19 vaccine booster program for people in residential aged care. Every resident living in an aged care facility who has received two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine will be offered a Pfizer vaccine booster dose at least six months after their second vaccination. The team at the care home will start, or may have already started, to discuss this with you or your loved one and to gain written consent for the vaccination. Please find further information on the COVID-19 vaccine booster by clicking here.

Thank you

1 November 2021

We are very pleased to welcome back visitors to Whiddon Laurieton. We do want to remind you that there are some important guidelines to follow when visiting.

NSW Health has advised that residents may have two visitors per day.

Please note that visits must be pre-booked with our team and visitors must ensure:

• they wear a surgical mask
• they have received a second dose of a COVID vaccination at least 14 days prior to their visit (visitors over 12 years old)
• they practice good hand hygiene and social distancing
• meet in the resident’s room and not in common areas
• they check-in through our visitor check-in system and the Service NSW app
• they do not visit if they have been to any COVID-19 hotspot venues or locations, or to any interstate locations of concern
• they do not visit if they are unwell and have any COVID-19 symptoms – fever (37. 5°C or higher) or symptoms of COVID-19
• they do not visit if they are a close contact of a person with confirmed COVID-19 and are within their self-isolation period
• they do not visit if they live in a household with a person who is currently self-isolating
• they do not visit if they are waiting for a COVID-19 test result

We thank you for your understanding and patience.

26 October 2021

Due to an increase of COVID-19 cases in the Port Macquarie-Hastings local government area, as a precaution, for now, we are only allowing visits under exceptional circumstances such as end of life visits or to provide essential care services. It is our highest priority to keep our residents, families and employees safe and well.

We genuinely understand that this is a difficult time and we want you to know that our teams are working hard to keep you connected to your loved ones through phone and video calls wherever possible.

We also have our new app, Whiddon Connect, that we encourage you to download. You can book in video chats with your loved one on this app by contacting our team. You can also see COVID-19 updates and photos of your loved one enjoying activities. For more information on Whiddon Connect click here.

We thank you for your understanding at this time.

22 October 2021

We have recently had some questions in relation to the end date of Single Site Arrangements. Whiddon has today (22/10/21) confirmed directly with the Guiding Principles Hub that there is no end date for Single Site Arrangements in NSW at this time.

The Department of Health have put criteria in place that must be met before these arrangements will cease. These are:

• No cases of COVID-19 in residents or staff in residential aged care in NSW
• Community transmission is considered low risk for two weeks

When these criteria are met the Department of Health will issue advice and provide 2 weeks’ notice that the arrangements will cease.

If you are receiving information from other employers that differs from the above please speak with your manager about this so that we may assist you accordingly.