A significant drop in Covid-19 fatalities have contributed to care home deaths in South Yorkshire decreasing in 2021.
A report released by the Office for National Statistics this week showed 1,375 fewer people died in homes last year.
Across England as a whole, 14,066 people died from the illness in care homes in 2021. That’s 10,000 fewer than in 2020.
Care home employee Anita Bland described the difficulties of working in a home during the pandemic, as part of Sheffield’s Stories from the Pandemic project.
“To start with I was very frightened of it,” she said. “I actually catch two buses to come to work and two buses go home, so I was very paranoid when I got on buses.
“Sterilising, mask, everything. And then getting off, coming in, sanitising, PPE.
“Yeah, it was hard.”
Deaths from dementia and Alzheimer’s disease also dropped notably, from 48,346 in 2020 to 39,623 in 2021.
Barnsley saw the biggest drop in deaths in South Yorkshire, with a decrease of 36.5% between the two years. Doncaster saw the smallest, with 25.7% fewer people dying in homes in 2021.
