With operations being scaled down at Cornwall Regional Hospital (CRH), 28 of the hospital's social cases have been transferred to the private wing at an infirmary in Falmouth at the expense of the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Local Government.

The decision was made to place the patients at a private facility because other infirmaries in the western region of the country were filled to capacity. Director of nursing service at CRH, Gillian Ledgister, said that the hospital was responsible for financing the day-to-day needs of the patients.

"Certainly we have to take care of them [and] all their needs within the facility," she told editors and reporters during a Gleaner Editors' Forum last week.

Ledgister noted that, like other hospitals, CRH has had its fair share of social patients. These are patients who have been abandoned by their families or have remained at the hospital after being discharged because they have no one to take care of them.

"Prior to all of the relocation exercise, we managed, through our social workers to get some of them out," she reported.

"The majority of them are from outside of the parish. Because we are a Type A facility, we get patients from varying parishes. So, most of them would have been out of parish," said Ledgister.

In addition to the 28 patients who were relocated, acting regional director of the Western Regional Health Authority, Errol Greene, said that CRH had eight other social patients, inclusive of three long-staying children. These patients are currently staying at the hospital.

"We want to encourage the public, those who have relatives there, to really help us by taking these patients to release beds for more urgent patients," he said.