Families abandon relatives in hospital while occupying their homes

WITH hundreds of medically discharged patients continuing to occupy public hospital beds across Jamaica, Health Minister Dr Christopher Tufton says the Government is looking at the law to determine how relatives who abandon loved ones in hospital can be held accountable. He also revealed that some relatives continue to live in homes owned by the very people they have neglected. Speaking with the Jamaica Observer after last Thursday’s Health Hurricane Response Programme (HHRP) working breakfast, Tufton said social cases currently account for between five and 10 per cent of the country’s roughly 4,000 public hospital beds.

He said the problem has become particularly acute in western Jamaica, where he believes the aftermath of Hurricane Melissa may have worsened an already strained situation. He warned that the growing number of patients who no longer require medical treatment but remain in hospital is reducing bed availability for people awaiting admission. “We’re doing another census, because it’s a moving target, and I’ve asked for that information to be granted, but we are really under pressure when it comes to social cases.

Like I said at Savanna-la-Mar Hospital [last] week, I checked, there were 26. Now, when you have a hospital with 150, 160 beds and you have 26 [social cases], and you have 30, 40 people waiting for a bed, you understand that problem would have been much less,” Tufton said. However, the minister said the challenge extends well beyond Savanna-la-Mar Public General Hospital.

“The truth is that the infirmaries seem to be crowded... [and] what is happening is that there’s a gradual creep that is taking place, where health now is becoming a provider of social [services] for the infirm. We’re already doing it unofficially, but practically, yes, in the hospitals; because I think we have, in western region alone — and this could be wrong — in western region alone, maybe because of Melissa, I think we have in excess of 100 social cases.

“And when you contact the families, they say they’re not willing to take the person because they can’t manage them and all of that, while some of them don’t even respond,” he said. Social cases are individuals who have been medically cleared for discharge but remain in hospital because they have nowhere suitable to go or because family members are unwilling or unable to care for them.