COMMUNITY spirit is strong in Deeside where a local business has come forward to donate a caravan a town GP so he may continue working in the community during the coronavirus pandemic without risking his family’s health.

Mark Harney, who is based at the Quay Health Centre in Connah’s Quay, spoke to the Leader of his delight at the show of strong community support after a caravan was donated by a local business, Spinney’s, after making a social media appeal.

Dr Harney, who has worked in the community as a family GP for several years, said: “These are unprecedented times but I want to thank everyone in the community for sharing the appeal as far and wide as it went, I am very grateful.

“I put out the appeal so that I could carry on working. The government advice was that, if anyone in a person’s household falls ill then we would all need to isolate for two weeks and that takes me out of a workplace where we are all needed at the moment.”

By Sunday evening, March 22, the dad-of-two said that after the appeal was shared across the platform by dozens of people and lots of offers came in to show their support where possible.

A patient of his who works at a caravan and motorhome dealer spotted the post and said they would speak with their employer about if they could help in any way.

Rob Farmer, sales manager of Spinney Motorhomes and Caravans in Queensferry, since reached out to the local GP and offered him the use of a van for free throughout the pandemic.

He said: “We had been tagged in the appeal by several people seeing if we could help out and, as a local business we wanted to do whatever we could to help out in the current climate. One of our employee’s also made us aware of the post.

“As a family-run business, we like to work within our community. We had a van just sat there as part of our stock and thought this would be a good way to put it to use rather than sitting in our lot whilst the business is closed.

“We had the caravan cleaned and delivered to Mark as quickly as possible so that we could fulfil our promise to him. With everything going on in the world at this moment in time, we hope this acts as a message that there is good going on around us and we all need to play a part in that coming though in dark times.”

The caravan dropped off Tuesday and is currently on the 58-year-old doctor’s driveway where he will isolate himself from his family should a member of the household display COVID-19 symptoms.

By living separately, Dr Harney will still be able to provide his medical services to the people of Deeside.

He added: “I suspect the caravan will be my base for the next few weeks as my colleagues and I work through this the best we can. We hope things will start to turn a corner soon but we can only play it by ear.

The doctor stressed how important it is to follow the advice given by the government and public health service of social distancing, hand washing and minimising contact with people outside your own household to stop the chances of COVID-19 continuing to spread.

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