Elderly dumped at hospital

It is costing the South-West Regional Health Authority (SWRHA) $500 a day, Trinidade said, to support elderly mothers and fathers on certain hospital wards where they have made their home. There are some 15 persons on SFGH medical wards, the cost of feeding and clothing them having run into millions of dollars for the past two years.

Health Minister John Rahael has directed Trinidade to come up with a plan to curtail the "dumping" of the elderly at SFGH and to locate relatives of those already there. It has cost SWRHA $2.4 million to keep and sustain 15 elderly men and women who have been living at the institution for the past two years.

Last week, Trinidade wrote to the head of the hospital’s department of medicine, Dr Kanter Ramcharan, for an update on "homeless people" living on the wards. The report was submitted to Trinidade who is currently working on a plan to rid the hospital of the "elderly homeless."

Contacted about this situation, Trinidade said that he has been experiencing no end of pains to locate relatives of the homeless elderly. "But we are not without a heart; we will not throw people out on the road," Trinidade said.

Trinidade said it was time to introduce into the public hospital framework of health care delivery the concept of convalescence. "I do not envisage a hospital without ‘homeless’ people, but we cannot encourage people to dump off their loved ones here. It’s too costly for a hospital which services half a million people," Trinidade said.

A senior Ministry of Health official told Newsday that Government intends to locate "facilities" in San Fernando as a temporary shelter for the hospital’s "homeless."

Trinidade said that apart from the cost incurred, "homeless" patients at SFGH are often abusive and sometimes violent towards nurses and staff. "I wouldn’t doubt that they’re reeling from lack of care from their loved ones," Trinidade commented, "but what can we do?"

Homeless patients include mothers and fathers whose children have chosen to abandon them. Trinidade said that he had asked one woman to collect her husband at the hospital and her comment to him then was, "I will come after Carnival; I already have my costume."

"Our society is losing our conscience. We cannot neglect our loved ones," Trinidade said.