Homeless shelter offers beds to abandoned elderly

The Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) is being offered the opportunity to transfer the abandoned elderly persons who are taking up needed beds in the Accident and Emergency (A&E) Department to the Barbados Alliance to End Homelessness (BAEH) Spry Street shelter.

BAEH President Kemar Saffrey told members of the media today that the shelter which currently has 90 beds, has adequate space to hold the just over 30 people abandoned by relatives at the hospital, although they have been discharged.

Saffrey said BAEH views those elderly folks abandoned at QEH as homeless.

“The organisation is willing to assist the QEH. We have already sent through a proposal seeking to take those 30 to 33 persons and house them here at the shelter. And the reason for that is that they are homeless. We have a 90-bed facility and we are willing to help those persons.

“Now those persons we are willing to help, are persons that are capable of getting around, doing things for themselves. We don’t want severe cases like if they are on a machine, or require that type of care. We are also hearing from the hospital that there are young people being left at the hospital.

“So rather than taking up the beds at the hospital, where other persons are coming in with a critical need for those services, we can take them and put them here and transition them by getting them back with their family, providing them with counselling, providing them with meals and we would obviously bring on persons that care for the elderly,” he said.

Recently, a media release issued by QEH’s Board of Management stated that the island’s lone secondary and tertiary public health care facility had reached its capacity with the majority of its 519 in-patient beds occupied. The release indicated that this was due in part to the large number of persons awaiting elective surgery and the continued provision of care to persons classified as Elderly for Care (EFC). According to the QEH, at least 30 EFCs had been cleared for discharge but were still at the hospital as relatives, due to socio-economic and other factors, were unable or ill-equipped to provide care to them.

Saffrey said that he has found out that relatives of some of these abandoned patients have access to their pension and other benefits and BAEH will also be assisting these persons in accessing legal services.

“We have set a minimal fee to house those persons which would save the hospital probably more than 90 per cent of that $25 000 that they estimate to spend per month and we are offering much more, including counselling, legal services, getting them back to their families and moving them back with their families. There are some persons living in the hospital for months.

“At this stage, it is a proposal. We have met with the hospital and they have visited and we are putting it out there that we are willing to provide that care and that service to the elderly. We are already taking clients from the hospital, so this is nothing new,” Saffrey said.

(anestahenry@barbadostoday.bb)