As officials at the country’s main healthcare facility prepare to open a spanking new Accident and Emergency Department, some employees are concerned about the number of beds still being used for elderly care preventing clients with pressing health issues from being properly admitted.
But a solution may be in the offing, as authorities get ready to move the close to 40 elderly ‘patients’, some abandoned, to the St Lucy District Hospital which is to be taken out of use as an isolation facility used at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Executive Chairman of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) Juliette Bynoe-Sutherland told Barbados TODAY that with an increasing number of patients coming into the A&E department during the 18 months of the COVID-19 pandemic, the almost 40 geriatric clients are creating a “bottleneck”.
In an interview on Wednesday, she also revealed that officials from the Ministry of Health and Wellness are finalising plans to transfer the patients from the QEH to the St. Lucy District Hospital.
The revelations have emerged after Democratic Labour Party (DLP) spokesperson on health, Paul Gibson recently demanded that the “perennial” healthcare issues be finally put to rest.
“The issue is that we are having a situation where even though there is a bigger, wider A&E department, the entrance or lead-on to the wards remains a constant challenge where there are 37 elderly, indigent, aged persons on wards with nowhere to go because they have been left there by family,” Gibson complained.
“If you are building a new A&E department and you have no beds to put people in, the question is ‘how effective or efficient will you really be?’” he asked.
The DLP spokesman acknowledged there were instances where relatives are in dire economic circumstances and cannot take care of the elderly while some others are clear cut cases of neglect.
“We want to have a place and a space or more places and spaces for the aging population in Barbados. It is a tremendous concern that we in the Democratic Labour Party want addressed,” Gibson declared.
When contacted, Bynoe-Sutherland conceded the existence of the elderly care challenge, while contending that the “vast majority” of cases have responsible relatives who are simply in no position to keep their elders in safe environments at home.
“I believe you received a call because the staff in A&E are frustrated that their best efforts to improve service delivery are going to be stymied by that critical bottleneck,” Bynoe-Sutherland told Barbados TODAY.
“So the demand for the Accident and Emergency room has increased, but the bottleneck that has pre-existed has not been resolved. What is happening is that people are presenting later, they are presenting sicker, so we are having a lot more people who need to be admitted. So when you meet that increased demand for beds at the hospital with what appears to be an immovable group of persons, it is a recipe for a serious challenge.”
The Executive Chairman declared that the hospital would not subject the elderly persons to homelessness, but argued that the problem ought to be systematically addressed by the ministries of health and elder care.
“There are a number of measures that the Ministry of Health, as I understand it, is looking at to be able to address this systematically along with the Ministry of [People Empowerment and] Elder Affairs including the building of a modern geriatric hospital, which is on the cards,” said Bynoe-Sutherland.
“Unfortunately, the QEH is not the driver of this change in terms of geriatric and elderly programming. What we have to do until solutions are found is care for these clients as best we can as an institution,” she added.
In addition, Bynoe-Sutherland revealed that one of the temporary solutions to address the problem is to remove the St Lucy District Hospital from the pool of quarantine facilities making it available to the QEH’s geriatric patients.
“They are just finalising the arrangements. As soon as that happens, we will be in a position to transport the patients… but I believe our ability to discharge to that facility should happen very shortly and that will bring immediate relief while the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Elder Affairs look at more medium to long-term solutions,” Bynoe-Sutherland added.
(kareemsmith@barbadostoday.bb)
