The Chief Executive of the South Eastern Trust, Roisin Coulter, has paid tribute to the hard work of staff, which has been described as nothing short of “extraordinary” during Storm Éowyn.
“Whether it was providing vital services in challenging conditions, maintaining the safety of our facilities or ensuring that those most vulnerable in our community were not at risk, you all went above and beyond in ways that will not be forgotten,” said Roisin Coulter.
As staff and teams assessed the aftermath and began the recovery phase from the Storm on Monday morning, heroic stories emerged of staff who went the extra mile for their communities, following the highest gusts of winds in Northern Ireland for 27 years according to meteorologists.
Staff came in extra early, including catering staff to open restaurants for somewhere for staff to sit, staff brought food to vulnerable patients without electricity and Estates staff worked relentlessly across the Trust to ensure sites were safe and accessible.
The Community Equipment and Loans Service have been instrumental in the response to the challenges that Storm Eowynn brought across community services. The team ensured that contingency arrangements were put in place and vulnerable clients identified.
“As we move into recovery, I have no doubt that the same level of dedication will continue to shine through. Your contributions have made a real difference and we are incredibly fortunate to have such a dedicated team”.
Director of Primary Care and Older People, Clare-Marie Dickson described how “proud” she was of the lengths that staff have gone to over the past few days. “To put patients safety at the heart of what we do, it has been a huge team effort.”
“We want to say a huge thank you to all of our staff who had been involved in the planning for this storm, during and the aftermath of it. I have to say I have been so humbled at the examples of team work right across our services.
“This storm has presented many, many challenges, not least to those staff who have to provide an essential service in the community and there have been heroic stories of how Nurses and Social Care staff have tried to access their clients. We have had great support from our community and our partners to enable accessibility to some of the homes. To actually witness, at first hand, on Friday night, how those staff got equipment to patients and were able to go in and support very vulnerable people in their homes, it has just been a testament to the staff that we have.”
Recognising the efforts of Estates staff across Trust sites, Director of Finance and Estates Wendy Thompson added, “I would like to say a huge thank you to all the teams across Estates for their outstanding response to the range of issues that arose during and following Storm Éowyn. As always, the team remained focus on keeping our service users and staff safe and ensuring disruption to our services was kept to a minimum. The team really went above and beyond in such difficult circumstances and we are so grateful to them.”
There has been a massive multi-agency response to this storm and we are currently in the recovery phase. We know from our NI Electricity colleagues that there are still many people without electricity. There will still be many people in the community that we will need to reach.
This is a time for a whole community response, to look out for all of your friends, your neighbours in your vicinity as it is the support at community level that will make the difference.
