SOME JAMAICANS treat dogs, the mentally disturbed, and the elderly with a callousness that often verges on cruelty. In the case of the elderly, this has now come to light in the deplorable state of the 13 Parish Council Infirmaries for the indigent aged and some private nursing homes which take in the elderly and charge for their services.
Inmates in these institutions are often neglected and frequently abused. The physical facilities and management systems for most of the government infirmaries are in a disreputable state, all in non-conformity with Ministry of Health rules and standards. In one case the ratio of bathrooms for males is 66 to 1. Neither the Ministry of Local Government nor the Ministry of Health seem able to ensure proper care for the island's rapidly expanding elderly population.
Nursing homes, like Community Basic Schools, are supposed to be registered and supervised but this is the exception rather than the rule. Only about 45% of the 109 private nursing homes are in fact registered and the proportion of registration for basic schools is even less. Nor does registration itself ensure proper monitoring. The Ministry of Health, which is responsible for this function in the case of nursing homes, has already been convicted in the court of public opinion over the disgraceful state of Places of Safety for young children in the custody of the State, a situation now duplicated in the case of the aged. How a society treats its vulnerable young and its defenceless old is often a measure of how civilised it is; based on the evidence at hand Jamaica's score on such a scale would be low indeed.
A 1999 report on the state of government infirmaries by the Programme Co-ordinating and Monitoring Unit of the Office of the Prime Minister warned that the human resources available to run the infirmaries were grossly inadequate and pointed out that the physical condition of the buildings required urgent attention. Nothing was done. By 2002, when another report was commissioned, the condition of the infirmaries had deteriorated further, to the point where it was recommended that the existing facilities should be razed and new infirmaries built.
The population becomes insensitive to murder as the murder rate increases, and caregivers become insensitive to the sufferings of their charges when they can do little to alleviate them. We are in danger of a general degradation of our humanity and we urge Government to take immediate steps to improve conditions in the infirmaries. In the case of private nursing homes the Ministry of Health must rigorously enforce the terms and conditions of the Nurses' Home Registration Act by imposing the newly increased fines for non-compliance.
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