Rochdale community pulls together to help NHS staff and patients during Covid-19

Steve Taylor, Chief Officer and Dr Shona McCallum, Medical Director, Bury and Rochdale Care Organisation, Nabeel Tariq, iCare Project Lead, Tariq Mohmmed, BAME Staff Network Lead, volunteers from Madina Masjid and Neeli Mosque

At the start of the pandemic, iCare, a local charity organisation, set out to help their local hospital. Following online meetings with Rochdale Infirmary managers and Tariq Mohammed, the hospital’s BAME staff network lead and hospital lead for this project, they agreed a way forward to work together.

That was back in March 2020 and for a full 12 weeks iCare and community volunteers pulled together from across the Rochdale community to deliver hot meals for NHS clinical staff at Rochdale Infirmary that were unable to leave their workplace due to treating Covid-19 patients. 

They also made up food parcels and toiletry packs to give to patients on discharge from the hospital wards including Tudor Court and the Floyd Unit so patients would have essentials when they got home. Additionally, at the beginning of Covid-19 when PPE was scarce, iCare donated approximately 40 - 50 face shields and visors to Rochdale Infirmary.

In total they donated 250 hot meals and 156 of both food parcels and toiletry packs.

Nabeel Tariq is the project lead for iCare and also one of the leaders providing emergency Covid response in the community, he helped co-ordinate the local donations with the Neeli mosque and Madina Masjid.

iCare, is a combined project run part of the UK Islamic Mission (UKIM) which have 40 branches throughout the UK and locally they have been running for six years in Rochdale.

Steve Taylor, Chief Officer for Bury and Rochdale Care Organisation said: “We are thankful for this amazing charitable act of kindness. Our local community has done Rochdale Infirmary proud and we are keen to keep the collaboration going into the future and to create a robust connection with our BAME population to understand the needs and support required to join together in a multicultural society.”

The iCare project supports the local Rochdale area with ongoing food bank collections and deliveries, health seminars for the local BAME population, flood relief, domiciliary visits to help and support local people, support emergency hubs in collaboration with Heywood Middleton and Rochdale Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and have ongoing funding collections and donations to the MacMillan services.