Porto City Hall distributes 15 thousand masks to visits to retirement homes

Porto City Hall has handed out 15 thousand disposable face masks in the circa 70 nursing homes in the city of Porto. These masks are meant to support family visits to relatives living in long term retirement homes.

Currently this is provided for by the DGS, but the Municipality of Porto furthered its efforts to support citizens in Porto. Also, following the systematic screening of elderly and caretakers for Covid-19 in Porto nursing homes, the Municipality also provided for PPE's to all family members that wish to visit their relatives in nursing homes.

Each elder was given five face masks, and that means that they can receive visits for an entire month; however, these visits must follow other safety measures, namely space capacity.

Porto City Hall delivered a training session to the professional workers of nursing homes regarding rules for visits, in coordination with health authorities. The action took place in the Firefighters Department of Porto, on the municipality's initiative.

The Municipal Testing Programme in Porto nursing homes was possible due to the donation of circa 5 thousand PCR Covid-19 tests by Fosun Foundation and Gestifute, which enabled the Municipality's screening both to elderly in nursing homes and respective care takers. There were established facilities to accommodate the elderly who tested positive and the elderly who tested negative, whose staying in the nursing home was not feasible.

Mayor of Porto, Rui Moreira attended one of such training, like the one held early last week on the training session for non-teaching staff.

The Mayor thanked everyone for their commitment and resilience and stated that "visits to the elderly are essential and these must be promoted with comfort and safety for everyone".

The testing programme to nursing homes was a success, as only 1.4% of infections was reported among the elderly; currently, as lock down is being eased and some activities are resuming, the City Hall wants to prevent a new wave of Covid-19 and all personnel related to nursing homes are granted training sessions regarding safety measures to comply with, namely visits by family members.

The Government announced the distribution of safety equipment though "nursing homes in Porto", however, out of the circa 70 retirement homes, only 2 claimed to have received 2 face masks by the Social Welfare.

The Municipality, in turn, distributed five masks to each beneficiary in all 70 retirement homes in Porto, which will enable visits for five weeks, once a week.