Lives 'in danger' due to lack of resident warden
ELDERLY people in sheltered housing accommodation claim their lives are being put at risk due to the lack of a resident warden.
Tenants of the 34 homes in the Oldfield Court and Queens Court complex in Thurso have signed a petition demanding that a warden is available on site 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to care for them.
The calls come after a long-serving warden retired and moved out of her flat, which was then rented out to applicants on the Highland housing register scheme last summer.
Highland Council housing officers met with residents this week who had signed the petition to discuss their concerns.
The current warden for both sheltered housing schemes works out of the council offices at Rotterdam Street in Thurso, weekdays between 9am and 5pm and makes daily checks on residents.
There is no warden provision for residents during evenings, weekends or bank holidays and if residents require assistance, they have to pull a cord to use the helpcall system, which is manned 24 hours a day by staff based in Inverness.
This services emergency calls from health and social care clients as well as sheltered tenants.
But according to one sheltered housing resident the scheme – while good in theory – does not work in practice.
Bob Thorne (92) suffered a fall in his bathroom earlier this month and used the helpcall system, but had to wait for an ambulance from Golspie to attend to him.
He said that if a warden was available on site, he would have been seen to almost immediately and as part of the residents’ rent was for a warden service, they should expect more for their money.
"We have been complaining about the situation for the past 12 months since the previous warden retired, but nothing has changed," he added.
"The warden service that we received before has never been replaced back to the way it was and yet we are still paying £90 a month for the service.
"At the weekend, we depend on pulling a cord if we are in trouble but it doesn’t work in practice and we need a warden back on site."
His daughter Meg Mackenzie said she had not been able to rest easy since changes to the warden cover had been made and residents deserved to have a warden on site, not one based in an office elsewhere in the town.
"I don’t have peace of mind anymore that my father is living in a safe environment. If something happens out of hours, I am the one who has to go and deal with it," she said.
"He is a World War Two veteran and he deserves better care than he is receiving at the moment.
"Every resident in sheltered housing accommodation deserves better care than they are receiving at present."
Thurso councillor Donnie Mackay, along with colleague John Rosie, have led the campaign for a resident warden and submitted the petition to housing officers.
Mr Mackay believes that taking a warden off site showed a lack of respect to elderly people and they deserved better.
"This has nothing to do with the current warden who is in place, it’s the decision of officials we object to," he said.
"We are campaigning for a warden to be put back on site permanently. There was a house on site for staff to stay in but in my opinion, it was rented out quickly and efficiently to stop a warden being on site when the previous woman retired.
"The council needs to look after the elderly and, by not having a warden on site, they are not doing that."
The council was unable to comment on the meeting with residents at the time of going to press.
However, in July it said current arrangements were working successfully with tenants and despite receiving a small number of complaints regarding the change in warden provision, they were managed in accordance with the council’s complaints policy, by personal contact.