17 September 2021
We are very pleased to let you know that all of our active residential aged care employees are now 100% first dose vaccinated or have a valid exemption. 75% of these employees are fully vaccinated (both doses). As you may know, the Government mandate comes into effect today and means that all residential aged care employees must have had at least their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. We are 100% compliant with this. In addition, although not mandatory, 93% of our Community Care team members are vaccinated with only 4 services less than 100%.
We thank all of our employees for rolling up their sleeves and being proud to protect. With 2,800 amazing team members needing to be vaccinated, our teams have worked incredibly hard over the last two and a half months since the mandate was announced, and before then as our goal has always been to see our employees vaccinated, to reach this milestone. We arranged onsite clinics to make the vaccine more accessible, encouraged our teams to receive their vaccine by running a number of campaigns, and supported them in the process of having their vaccine.
The vaccine is an important line of defence in our fight against COVID-19 and we hope this update provides you with some further reassurance. Our highest priority is to keep our residents, clients and employees safe and well. We also encourage family members to have their vaccine. While it is not compulsory for visitors to our care homes to have the COVID-19 vaccination as yet, it does provide an important layer of protection.
We also wanted to take this opportunity to remind you about our new app, Whiddon Connect, which we encourage you to download. You can book in video chats with your loved one on this app by contacting the team at your loved one’s care home. You can also see COVID-19 updates and photos of your loved one enjoying activities. For more information on Whiddon Connect click here.
We hope you are well and staying safe. As always, if you have an questions, please contact us on 1300 738 388, email us at hello@whiddon.com.au or contact the team where your loved one lives.
Please stay safe and well.
The Whiddon team