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| Brenda Kavanagh, CEO Komfort Kare. |
The latest home-care business to open in the Kildare and West Wicklow region comes with a 5-year track record in the Dublin area and has just opened a regional headquarters in Kilcullen's Market Square building,
writes Brian Byrne. For
Komfort Kare CEO
Brenda Kavanagh it was kind of a coming home: she lived in one of the complex apartments some years ago while studying social care at the Carlow Institute of Technology.
"When I completed my degree, I planned to do a Masters, but then found that I'd have to do a HDipEd first," she told the
Diary at
last weekend's Open Day for the new Kilcullen office. "Of course, cost came into it then, so instead I started work, first with Nua Healthcare Services, later with Caremark homecare in Naas where I eventually became a manager."
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| Brenda with Maggie Chen. |
In 2019, Dublin-based investor
Maggie Chen established Komfort Kare and brought Brenda in as CEO. When the pandemic hit, the enterprise provided support to nursing homes, and quickly grew staff levels to some 90 people. "After Covid calmed down, we moved into elder care, initially in Dublin from where we extended to Westmeath and Longford. In addition to Kildare and West Wicklow, from this office we will also be providing services in Laois and Offaly." The local manager is
Laura Glynn.
Komfort Kare offers clients a range of behaviour support, domestic assistance, personal care, complex care, ASD and ID support, and 24-hour health care services. In addition to private clients, the company is an approved HSE provider and can also provide agency staff on a temporary or permanent basis. "We provide a full range of non-clinical care, which can go from helping people in their homes with getting ready for their day all the way to support for people with significant disabilities." Staff are all fully qualified to a minimum of QQI level 5 training in healthcare and are trained in Patient Manual Handling, Safeguarding, First Aid and CPR, and more. "We have also recently began working with Griffith College, with which we offer a 2-year apprenticeship to a Level 6, working alongside our staff who mentor them all the way and they get full hands-on experience as well as their qualification."
The whole area of home care services has expanded exponentially, Brenda says. That has both made the sector highly competitive in both getting business and in recruiting qualified staff to do the work. "In Dublin alone, it has gone from around nine HSE approved providers to something like 29 in in the space of a decade. So the market is really flooding.”
To get and keep care staff, Komfort Kare is offering higher wage rates than many larger competitors, Brenda says. "We also have the mandatory pension arrangements in place in advance of next years's changes, and we also offer a full healthcare package and guaranteed roster hours.”
A new idea from Komfort Kare will be the production of a series of podcasts on various aspects of home care and how to live safely and comfortably at home either as an elder person or with various levels of disability. A small studio setup is part of the new offices in Kilcullen. "That came about because our HR and Social Media manager Rachel McGaley posted on Facebook a video of me doing a talk, and it got a very good reaction. So we'll be doing more of that, I think. It's all about creating more awareness of home care." Part of the plan is also to make people aware of what they are entitled to. "A lot of people just don't realise they can actually get state-funded care."
Komfort Kare introduced themselves to Kilcullen with an Open Day last weekend which included demonstrations of chair yoga, a sensory room, the care staff training space, and a mobile unit offering people a sense of what it's like to have dementia.
Meanwhile, as the possibility that the first human to live to 150 has already been born is being argued about amongst scientists, there is no doubt that even if that is not the case, there are going to be more older people around who are in a position to stay in their own homes with the right supports. That's a key element of the Sláinte Care programme looking forward. So there's not going to be any shortage of business for Komfort Kare and their colleague companies in the sector.
Primary care centres and home care together can help to keep people out of hospitals and nursing homes. "I think it can work, and we will see significant growth in the field," says Brenda Kavanagh, who actually did recently complete her Masters. "Ten years on," she laughs. It's never too late."
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