By Isanella Patoir
Beyond hospital services, Alicia Solomon, a registered nurse, is leading the way in satisfying the demand for home-based care and has capitalised on this essential service for patients who cannot leave their homes or just prefer to be treated in a familiar environment.
Solomon is the Chief Executive Officer and founder of Royalty Home-care and Private Nurse services. Launched in August this year, the service has already grown tremendously, prompting Solomon to now offer training for homecare nurses to get onboard.
For her, the service is not only rewarding because of her love for the profession but also provides her with an additional source of income.
“We provide home care services for seniors both medical and non-medical, persons living with disabilities, and persons who just can’t get by on a day-to-day basis,” Solomon said during a recent interview with the News Room.
Services offered by Royalty Home-care include physiotherapy, personal care, monitoring vital signs, administering medication along with meal planning and preparation other tasks such as getting in and out of bed and checkups at clinics among others.
“The idea came from work because by profession I am a nurse so, normally when we have patients on the ward and when they are discharged their relatives cannot provide that care to them, so they will ask if we know of any nurse who will give homecare or if we know of any good homecare place,” Solomon explained.
She has managed to get several nurses and doctors on board. The nurses and doctors are employed full-time and have adapted to working for Royalty Homecare on their days off.
“The benefit of our home care service is we give you the opportunity to feel some sort of comfort in your homes [and] you are there with your family.
“We also have doctors onboard with us as well, so when someone books us for full-time, they do have a doctor’s home visit as part of that package,” Solomon related.
She explained that there are various packages available that cater to all situations such as a senior citizen package for pensioners.
Certified home care provider, Christine Rudder said the most important part of the service they are offering is the make the patients feel comfortable and at home.
“I do love working with older patients, before actually getting into this, I worked with patients. At Royalty Homecare, we make your family feel at home, you can trust us with your family,” Rudder said.
Meanwhile, Renika Wilson, a patient care assistant and home care nurse said she did not ask if she could join Royalty Homecare.
“I was the first onboard and I was glad that she [Solomon] brought up the idea. I didn’t even ask if I could join, I just automatically,” Rudder said with a small laugh.
For her, she is not doing anything different, just “I am doing it in a home setting and not a hospital setting.”
“Royalty Homecare services is the best that people can get right now, we are coming to your home, doing everything in your home and you are not restricted from anything,” Rudder explained.
Solomon and her team are also COVID-19 frontline workers and have taken this into account and assure their clients of taking all necessary precautions to protect themselves and their patients.
