Press Statement to local Wicklow media
Sunbeam House Service reject criticism of its vaccine registrations -
Despite a recent national media report to the contrary, management at Sunbeam House
Services have not instructed staff to abuse the HSE Covid-19 vaccine registration process to
get quicker vaccinations for its administrative staff. Two communications were sent to staff
on the 7th of February 2021 and on the 9th of February 2021 and both communications were
simply to instruct staff to register in accordance with HSE guidelines and to clarify the two
separate categories under which frontline and support/administrative staff were to apply. To
suggest that management set out to or advised staff to make false registrations and to
‘misrepresent themselves’ is untrue. All staff were vaccinated in line with the HSE’s
guidelines for sequencing and registration process.
Extract from ‘HSE GUIDELINES FOR SEQUENCING AND REGISTRATION PROCESS FOR HCW COVID VACCINATION
FEBRUARY 5th 2021’
‘HCWs from all staff groupings who work in the units, wards or services, community settings day, residential and respite services, all the time, or who attend occasionally must be included. Examples of these are support staff, agency staff, students, administration staff, volunteers and other healthcare professionals. Healthcare Workers who usually work in these roles but who are currently out of work due to, for example, sick leave, high or higher risk medical status, maternity leave etc. must be included for vaccination in the relevant groups/cohorts.’ The Covid Operations HSE-Umbrella collaborative group later clarified that this meant that: ‘…all staff working in disability services (including day services, residential, respite, admin, therapy etc) are to be vaccinated as a matter of priority. Whilst the language in the documentation (HSE Guidelines for sequencing and registration process) speaks about ‘Health Care Workers’, for clarity, it has been confirmed that this refers to all staff working in disability services.
As it transpired all our staff were called for vaccination at roughly the same time, however,
Sunbeam House Services had no role whatsoever in the order of the rollout, our staff simply
complied with notifications to attend for vaccinations. Our approach to the registration
process was totally in line with HSE guidelines. The recently published article also implied
that the vaccination of our staff somehow prevented or delayed our clients receiving their
vaccines - this is entirely incorrect. The planned rollout of vaccines to people with disabilities
is in line with NIAC guidelines and our staff facilitated as many clients to receive the vaccine
as possible at all times.
Needless to say this report in a national newspaper on our vaccine take-up has caused
unnecessary distress for our clients and their families and for our dedicated and committed
staff.
The vaccination rollout is hugely positive for our clients, families and staff – as it will allow
us to return to a normal working environment, where we can achieve all that we have set out
to do on behalf of our 387 clients.
Our frontline staff worked extremely hard to keep the virus out of our centres and after doing
so for almost a year we regrettably had a small number of outbreaks, despite complying fully
with all necessary guidelines. Regretfully three of clients died from the effects of Covid-19
earlier this year. This was a matter of great sadness for all of us and our thoughts and prayers
remain with the families who have lost loved ones. One recent media report seemed to link
these sad deaths to our testing processes. We wish to firmly state that there was absolutely no
connection whatever between serial testing procedures and the covid related deaths in this
centre.
All involved with Sunbeam House Services have worked extremely hard over the past fifteen
months to continue providing services while also endeavouring to comply with all necessary
Covid-19 guidelines - and remain in full compliance with our statutory obligations to our
clients. It has been a challenging at time, however, we have overcome many of those
challenges through the commitment of staff and the support of our clients and their families.
We regretfully had to close our day and respite services in mid-March 2020 due to Covid-19,
but with the immense efforts and cooperation of our staff we began to reopen the services in
June and thankfully all have been available since then. We also opened five new centres
during the lockdown – the Student Learning Centre and DCB day centres in Bray, Aubrey
Respite Centre in Shankill and two residential centres in Bray.
With the rollout of the vaccine we will be in a stronger position to drive and maximise our
services at all 44 locations. Our 560 staff, most of whom live in the local area, work
continually towards ensuring that our clients are equal citizens within this the community.
Our services include; Day Services, Training, Residential and Respite Services.
ENDS
Available for interview/ further information:
- Joe Lynch, CEO Sunbeam House Services
- Dawn Leane, Chairperson, Sunbeam House Services
joe.lynch@sunbeam.ie – 087-8154467
dawn.leane@sunbeam.ie
