Care chiefs apologise to 'frozen' care home residents

When the storm struck, leaving thousands of homes and businesses across Argyll without power, Eadar Glinn Care Home in Drummore Road only had enough emergency stand-by supply for the first four hours of the massive outage, said a relative of a resident in the home, who contacted The Oban Times to raise her concerns.

The worried woman, who asked to remain anonymous, said the home’s contingency plan ran out along with its emergency power supply.

Torches and extra blankets were handed out to residents, some who are paying up to £1,600 a week for their care, but they were "frozen", she said.

A spokesperson for Argyll and Bute Health and Social Care partnership said it is now reviewing its resilience plans to reduce the likelihood of the situation happening again and the impact of future power interruptions

The relative of the care home residents said: "Some of these residents are paying up to £1,600 a week for their care yet they were frozen. The home only had enough emergency light for four hours. The power went off at 4.45pm and didn’t come back until 7.45am the next day. They only had torches and blankets to hand out - that was nowhere near a suitable contingency plan.

"The lift wasn’t working either so there were people stuck upstairs, including one patient with dementia that I know off. The home was simply not prepared for a power cut of this size. Argyll and Bute Council needs to step up its act. The situation was absolutely ridiculous."

But she did commend the staff on duty who did their best, saying: "The staff were brilliant and did their best, but it was challenging for them to carry out their duties, especially to give personal care to some of the residents."

A spokesperson for Argyll and Bute Health and Social Care Partnership said: "We would like to thank all our health and social care staff for their dedication and hard work in supporting local communities across Argyll and Bute during the recent storm.  

"We are aware that there were issues at Eadar Glinn Residential Home in Oban where the power was out for a period of time and we would to thank the staff at the home for putting plans in place very quickly to ensure that the residents were cared for and kept as comfortable as possible.    

"The care home was fully operational again early on Saturday morning. We would also like to apologise to the residents and their families, and we will be working on reviewing our resilience plans to reduce the likelihood of the situation recurring and the impact of future power interruptions."

By Monday evening, the work of hundreds of engineers, including some drafted in from the southeast of England, was entering its final stages to reconnect the final 1,700 properties, mainly in Argyll and Bute, left without power because of the destructive winds.

Friday’s Red Alert warning and the dangerous travel conditions initially had stopped work that had started on many repairs for a number of hours until wind speeds fell.

However, a major operation still took place that night near Taynuilt where fallen trees needed to be removed from the network. Engineers managed to get the job done just before dawn, reconnecting power to 10,000 people in the Oban area. 

Many businesses remained closed on Saturday, including some of the big food stores. Oban’s Tesco superstore was temporarily closed while chilled and frozen goods were removed from sale with waste heading to be made into animal food or turned into energy.

For more storm related stories including one Oban family’s lucky escape after their roof blew off, turn to Page 3.