Big-hearted home carers come to the rescue!

When care worker Mary Fernandes fell down her stairs at home breaking several bones, her colleagues immediately offered to provide care and support for their well-liked team member.

Popular Mary Fernandes never thought she would be needing the same service which she diligently provided for her vulnerable customers. However a fall down the last four stairs at home resulted in two broken ankles and two further breaks in her lower right leg.

Now completely incapacitated, Mary was unable to go to work and care for her customers or take care of her family.

Mary works Caremark (Mid-Sussex & Crawley) and has a regular list of customers but she also has a family of five children, three of which are under ten years of age who need her too.

With both legs in plaster and unable to weight-bear for at least six weeks there was not a lot Mary could do around the house or to support her family.

Her colleagues got to hear of her predicament and immediately rallied round to take care of her customers and also joined forces to care for Mary. They organized themselves to cook for Mary and her family, take the children out for social visits and come and visit her in their breaks to make sure she was not lonely or bored.

A care package was also put in place by West Sussex County Council to help Mary with various other tasks and with caring for her family. Her colleagues are now her carers and her children are loving the visits Mary receives each day!

Mary’s career in Care started when she looked after a member of her own family, but it wasn’t until January 2016 that she decided to make it her career and joined Caremark as a care worker in the Crawley team. She realised she wanted to make a positive difference to someone’s life by helping them overcome their difficulties.

Since joining Caremark she has never looked back.

A popular member of staff, Mary is well liked by all her colleagues and her polite, helpful and dedicated professionalism endears her to her customers.

Sarah Hatchard, Registered Manager and Director of Caremark (Mid-Sussex & Crawley) said: “Mary always has a smile on her face and gives 100% to all the customers she visits. All the carers love working with Mary and have all pitched in to help support her and the children.

“One of her carers is now affectionately called ‘Auntie’, such is the rapport they have built with the children.”

It will be a few more weeks yet before Mary can consider returning to the job she loves and by all accounts she will be welcomed back with open arms by both her customers and her colleagues.