I wanted to keep an eye on my dad during lockdown – so I volunteered in his care home | Arifa Akbar

I didn’t expect it to be such hard work – or to be confronted with so many empty beds. But it was also unexpectedly upliftingFor the past three months, I have been moonlighting as a tea-lady. A few weeks into lockdown, and at the height of the Covid-19 crisis, my father’s care home had become desperately understaffed. Carers were going down with the virus while cleaners were doubling up as kitchen staff, or vice versa. On the day I heard the manager’s partner had had to c