Kerikeri Retirement Village has today lifted most COVID-related visiting restrictions.
“After more than two years of tightly restricted visiting we are making the call to get back to as close to normal as possible,” said Kerikeri Retirement Village chief executive Hilary Sumpter. “It’s time!”
The Village, like all retirement living and aged-care facilities across the country, implemented strict lockdown and visiting protocols when COVID-19 first struck. It has been trying to roll these back progressively since April this year but had to re-introduce lockdowns and restrictions as new outbreaks and variants emerged.
“There is no doubt that the measures we all took as a community helped save lives at the Village,” Ms Sumpter said. “We couldn’t be prouder of our residents and our staff, all of who pulled together to make the best of a horrible situation. But that said, we couldn’t be more delighted to finally remove most restrictions. At least until they’re needed again.”
The Village has issued a simple eight-point ‘way of being’ to replace its current COVID restrictions:
- If you are unwell please don’t visit.
- RATs – if you are well and not displaying any COVID symptoms you can go anywhere in the Village without a RAT. But if you are symptomatic, or a close contact of a COVID-positive person, you do need to test.
- We will be open for visitors on weekends once again.
- Visitors will no longer need to make appointments.
- Visitors over the age of 12 will still need to wear masks in the Care Facility (beyond reception).
- Visitors will log-in on the automatic system and wear their sticker
- Village and Care residents can mix at activities.
- Staff who do not work in our Care Facility now no longer need to wear a mask (but we recommend that our Village Support staff keep wearing masks for now when undertaking cares for Village residents).
Ms Sumpter warned that visiting restrictions may have to be re-imposed if there is another outbreak or a surge of COVID-19 in the community. This could happen at short notice.
