In our Thursday edition last week we reported on a nurses’ protest about conditions at the Palms. Along with other members of the media corps, a Stabroek News reporter visited the institution, where nurses led them through the wards, and showed them the insanitary conditions under which they had to work, and patients had to live. In one ward, where the stench was overbearing, some patients could be seen lying on beds which had mattresses but no sheets, while others lay on mattresses on the floor.
One of the walkways was seen to be almost submerged by water, and according to our report, two reporters were almost overcome by nausea when they went to investigate the washroom area. The nurses said that they were obliged to bathe patients on the platform rather then in the bathroom, because it had become dangerously slippery. As for the female cleaning staff, it was said that they often had to carry buckets of water up three flights of stairs, as there was no running water available.
One nurse went on to relate how they hated the night shift, “because there was only one light... working in Ward Six,” and another claimed that the security personnel were useless. This newspaper observed that the two security guards at the gates were hardly in their first youth, and the allegation by the staff that thieves could calmly walk into the compound after dark and remove things, consequently had a certain ring of credibility. On another aspect of safety, the nurses also said that there had been an influx of mentally ill patients who were young, and one of whom had assaulted two nurses only two days before.
There were complaints too about inadequate staffing, and our reporter was told that one nurse was assigned to look after 41 patients. “We want to be placed under the Ministry of Health,” said a member of the group, “the Ministry of Labour, Human Services and Social Security [is] not paying any attention to our predicament.” We reported that the Palms had once been under the Ministry of Health, but had been removed from its control in 1992.
Contact was subsequently made with Permanent Secretary Mitradevi Ali in the Ministry of Human Services for a response to the nurses’ complaints, and she indicated that she was unaware of the crisis. The only complaint her ministry had received, she said, was about food which had gone missing from the Palms, the responsibility for which she laid on the nurses. For their part, the nurses angrily refuted this contention in our report of the following day, claiming that in the first place the food was not worth stealing, and in the second, it did not meet the nutritional needs of the patients.
Ms Ali also said that the ministry was not responsible for any flooding in the Palms’ compound; that came within the ambit of the Mayor and City Council’s jurisdiction. However, she did inform us that money had been allocated in this year’s budget for repairs to the institution. Where security matters were concerned, she accused the nurses of manhandling the guards, whom, she alleged, were afraid of them. She suggested that the staff might have been furious because a committee had started investigating the circumstances surrounding the death of former resident Ronald Downer. It should be noted that in a letter published in the Guyana Chronicle on June 10, Ms Ali claimed that this newspaper had published “off record” comments from her out of context. Suffice it to say here that Stabroek News denies this, and stands by the validity of its report.
Ms Ali’s allegations against the nurses have only served to obfuscate matters. The primary question relates to the physical conditions in the Palms, to which a reporter from this newspaper can give first-hand testimony. As such, therefore, even if there were some substance to Ms Ali’s accusations about the nurses having ulterior motives for complaining, they would be irrelevant to the issue at hand.
What is relevant is the fact that the Palms is in an utterly insanitary state, representing a health hazard to both patients and staff. How in the name of goodness does Ms Ali and her Ministry expect the staff to maintain a modicum of cleanliness and comfort for our destitute senior citizens in circumstances where there is no running water in the ward washrooms upstairs, and there are large pools of stagnant water lying downstairs? The overpowering odour which assailed the nostrils of the assembled media representatives also bears witness to the fact that there is something seriously amiss in the sanitation department.
And why are patients lying on the floor? There are surely businesses and organizations if not within, then certainly without Guyana which would be more than willing to donate beds for our elderly citizens who have entered the twilight of their lives and are entitled to at least the barest minimum of creature comforts. And there are plenty of local citizens who would donate sheets for use on the mattresses, if not other things to improve the quality of life.
In addition, the claim by nurses that young, mentally ill patients are being “dumped” in the Palms, is in need of immediate investigation. The institution is not designed to cater for such individuals, who will require psychiatric attention. There appears to be a serious failure as well in the security department. In the first place, why is it so difficult for the Ministry to fix existing lights in the wards, and ensure that external lighting is commensurate with safety needs? That is, after all, a fairly straightforward operation not demanding of a huge financial investment. And Ms Ali must recognize that two elderly guards on the gate will have no impact whatsoever on the security situation.
What perhaps was most disturbing was the fact that Ms Ali said that she was unaware of the current crisis in the institution. If that is so, then either the Palms administration has been derelict in not reporting about conditions to the Ministry, or it has reported, but those reports have never reached Ms Ali’s desk. Alternatively, if they have reached her desk, then clearly they have not been acted on. In any event, whether she received reports or not, Ms Ali clearly has not gone herself, or sent any of her officers into the institution to keep tabs on what is happening there.
Now that everything is out in the open, the public wants to hear quickly from the Ministry of Human Services exactly what remedial action they are going to take in relation to the physical conditions in the Palms. And if they are not going to do anything with some expedition, then perhaps the proposal from the nurses about moving the institution back under the auspices of the Ministry of Health should be given consideration.