Families continue to abandon elderly relatives at GPHC – CEO

Cases of older persons being taken to the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) for medical treatment by their families and being abandoned at that institution continue, and according to statistics from the hospital, those numbers increase at the end of each year.

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the GPHC, Retired Brigadier George Lewis, recently told the media that such situations usually occur between the months of November and December annually. He noted that elderly persons are taken to the hospital to be treated for minor illnesses and when they are ready to be discharged, their relatives disappear and cannot be located.
“Or they bring them to the Accident and Emergency Department and by the time they are treated they are no longer there and when you check the information that they delivered to the clerks who recorded the vitals for the persons, it is that the information is incorrect. You cannot make contact with the persons. That is a challenge for us,” the CEO told the media.
He stated that in order to remedy such situations, very soon, the GPHC will be introducing its electronic medical records system. One of the requirements with the introduction of this system will be that persons bringing patients to the GPHC for any treatment would have to produce a pictorial presentation of identification.

“So with that, we are hoping that we can get better information. We do have patients who are in the hospital who are abandoned by their relatives and what we do is utilise our social workers to work with the different homes to try to get them into those homes. The process sometimes takes a while because the homes might be filled but we don’t abandon those patients.”
Less than two weeks ago, Coordinator of Elderly Health at the Public Health Ministry, Dr Melissa Dehaarte, during an interview with Guyana Times had noted that neglect and other forms of abuse exist in high rates.
She explained that many elderly persons in Guyana continue to face negativities stemming from social issues in society, topped with their health statuses.