By Eric King-
St George’s Crypt has closed down its service to homeless people following an outbreak of a vomiting bug. Several of the charity’s service users and staff fell sick over the weekend and the kitchen, sparking alarm among its users. The homeless shelter which serves daily food to homeless people in the area closed as a precaution to prevent the illness spreading and infecting more people. The food service was not available on Sunday and Monday but resumed its services on Tuesday, leaving many of its regulars sceptical about eating at the charity shelter again. The charity which is based at St George’s Church on Great George Street, and works with rough sleepers and those with addiction issues has been operating for decades.
The charity accommodates beds for 40 people as well as a kitchen staff. It also runs an art class in the afternoon after serving hot meals, providing shower facilities and clothes to the homeless. Some of the charity users told The Eye Of Media.Com that its regular meals are satisfying, but the issue of vomiting has occurred in the past, in 2017. 32 year old Simone Hall, who regularly attends the homeless shelter told The Eye Of Media.Com : ”this shelter is very good to homeless people, but it is very worrying that food can become contaminated and make people ill. It is not the first time this has happened . The people in the kitchen need to sort out their hygiene practices. You always have a long queue at the homeless charity
A statement on the Crypt’s Facebook page said:- “If any of our service users has vomiting or diarrhoea, then we take the strictest measures to ensure that as few people as possible get infected. “With a high number of people using our lunch service, if such a an outbreak happens, it could have devastating consequences. “On Sunday night we had a number of incidents of sickness and vomiting within our resident population, also a few of our staff were infected.
“We made the difficult decision to close the lunchtime service while still offering a full service to anyone needing accommodation. “Because of these actions, the sickness has passed and we are reopening the service to everyone this lunchtime. “Thank you for the patience of all our volunteers who were not able to come and support our service and especially to all our staff who supported our residents through this period of sickness.”