Help through quarantine

Yesterday was my last day in quarantine. I have been climbing the walls. Never again will I give everyone a lift to Volleyball (10 journeys a week is the alternative to masked lift sharing with the windows open).

My weeks of relative isolation have been improved by Zoom. As the ten thousand gifts projects comes to an end, I have been fortunate enough to hear from some of the recipients. Here we speak to Anastasia from Liverpool Cancer Mummies

 And, as always, listening to others gives me a sense of perspective, quarantine for me is nothing to worry about. My job is a gift.

Some of the videos are super helpful to you therapists, and to anyone you know who has been diagnosed. There are loads of them (quarantine is long and slow and I have Netflix nausea), the team are barely speaking to me as whilst I record and edit, I am refusing to brand (or ‘tart’ we as call it).

Hopefully we will add them to the blogs in the...

Are we more likely face a claim of discrimination than we are of negligence for someone contracts Coronavirus on our premises.

We have been through so much, we have had to learn how to risk assess and control cross infection.

We are not the only ones who are picking up new skills and discovering responsibilities that we may not have known we had. Our professional bodies, our insurers and our clients are all working from unchartered territories.

Some professional bodies have, at the time of writing, advised us to seek medical consent before touching anyone who falls into the clearly defined groups of vulnerable, such as many of those affected by cancer.

We are in the throes of a global pandemic and we are, no matter best intentions, unlikely to get that written consent. If we turn folk away, are we liable to claims of discrimination?

Alison Livings of Holistic Insurance Services and Jude Hogarth, a specialist discrimination lawyer, discuss.

I’ve been listening and learning – would you like to know more?
 
Thanks for sharing your thoughts about the discrimination quandary posted  last week. I had no idea it was so controversial – my world is very black and white, if you will pardon the pun.
 
Responses ranged from the outraged, to the indifferent (everyone has a right to decide) to questions about the real reason for the refusal to accept a treatment from a black therapist. I should have said that these therapists have a Harley Street Clinic and are in no way taking chances with infection control (they have done my training – they are all over infection control).
 
My video learning has continued this week as I have interviewed some of the charities and support groups who have kindly agreed to help us to distribute our ten thousand gifts.
It has been a  joyous and a challenging week – there have been many happy stories and some heart...

I have been concerned about risk assessment being used as a weapon to discriminate against the vulnerable. If you have completed the Control of Cross Infection Qualification, you know I raised this an issue in June. This pre-dates the data showing the increased vulnerability of the Black, Asian, Minority Ethnic (BAME) groups.

I wanted to explore this further when creating our discrimination in wellness learning area (you can join for free) I asked a few questions (you know me and my questions).

I clearly wasn’t expecting that – what is your answer to this problem?

Sending eye openers,

Jennifer