Tufton hits hurdle in push to collar relatives amid social patients crisis

THE GOVERNMENT will have to backtrack on plans to take civil action against people who have abandoned their relatives at public hospitals, at least for the time being, according to Minister of Health and Wellness Dr Christopher Tufton.

In February the health minister announced that that he had sought the advice of the attorney general on the path to ensure that people who abandon their relatives could be held accountable. On Monday he shared the response.

“I have asked for legal advice at the level of the Attorney General’s Chamber’s, and the legal advisor to the government and preliminary response is that we may not have jurisdictional responsibility to pursue this in the courts. It may mean an actually changing of the law, which I have asked for an examination of, to take place because we can’t put them out on the road,” he admitted.

“The reality is there is a sense of responsibility which must be attributed to family members, particularly direct family members, around the treatment of normally the older members of their family. Usually these are those with chronic illnesses, those who are retired and what has emerged as a standard procedure, is that we use the hospital as an infirmary. If you go to Bellevue, for example, maybe 500 of the 700 residents at Bellevue are persons who have been released.”

A 2014 Gleaner article noted that Bellevue, which is a psychiatric hospital established at 16 ½ Windward Road, Kingston 2, seems to be morphing into a long-care facility for the homeless.

A Gleaner probe then, confirmed that the facility, situated on 123 acres of land, was home to 550 long-term patients without mental illnesses, while seeing only 900 mentally ill patients each year.

Now with an estimated six to 12 per cent of the 4,000 hospital beds occupied by patients who have been discharged. but have nowhere to go, they are taking up about 200-400 beds.

“That’s a real challenge that we face,” Dr Tufton told The Gleaner.