Western Bureau:

Even though they are no longer occupying hospital bed space, the Government is still footing the bill for the day-to-day care of the social patients, who were moved from the Cornwall Regional Hospital (CRH) to a private facility in Falmouth, Trelawny, when activities were scaled down at the Montego Bay infirmary in the aftermath of a noxious fumes issue.

According to information provided by the Western Regional Health Authority (WRHA), it is costing taxpayers some $38 million monthly to keep the 98 social patients, who are now scattered across hospitals and private facilities in the parishes of Westmoreland, St James, Hanover and Trelawny.

“The hospitals in western Jamaica have a total of 98 social patients. Keeping them come at a cost of a conservative estimate of $13,000 per day,” said St Andrade Sinclair, director of the WRHA. “This is a bill that the Government can ill afford when hospitals are in need of a number of necessities to administer acceptable healthcare for the sick.”

Among the social patients enjoying the benefit are the 32 individuals, who were removed from the CRH in Montego Bay to the Icy Allen Nursing Home in Falmouth, Trelawny, but remain the responsibility of the hospital.

At the time it was opened two years ago, officials at the Icy Allen Home, which was built to accommodate people who needed 24-hour healthcare, told The Gleaner that it cost $30,000 per month to keep each person.

According to Sinclair, the WRHA wants to rid itself of the burden of caring for social patients and to that end, he will be seeking to meet with the local government bodies in the region to have them take on that responsibility.

“I am in the process of arranging a meeting with all four mayors and their chief executive officers (CEO) to make plans to remove these social patients to the infirmaries across the region,” said Sinclair. “Hospitals are for sick persons who after they are well must be discharged to make way for needed bed space.”

In many cases, people will take their sick elderly parents, grandparents, and other loved ones to hospitals and basically leave them there to die. Many of them ultimately end up being buried in pauper graves.

Sinclair said that while he cannot speak to the law governing social patients, from his experience, in the case of abandoned children, the Child Development Agency (CDA) usually assume responsibility for them.

“From my experience of what happened in May Pen Hospital, the Child Development Agency was brought in and arrangements were made to remove the children whose mothers had abandoned them,” said Sinclair, who thinks the various government agencies should come together and do the same thing for the social patients dumped on the hospitals.