OBA’s Tucker On Hospital Beds, KEMH & More
“The issue of having insufficient patient beds and the staffing issues at KEMH is part of a much larger problem,” Shadow Health Minister Robin Tucker said.
BHB Raises Alert Level Due To Pressure
This follows after the Bermuda Hospitals Board upgraded its alert level to 3, with 4 being the highest, due to what they said was “growing pressure within King Edward VII Memorial Hospital, primarily driven by the number of medically fit for discharge patients causing a record number of people waiting for inpatient beds.”
BHB noted that at one point 34 patients were waiting for beds as “there were over 40 patients medically fit for discharge still in hospital, and all additional areas with available beds were being used.”
“The changes we are making are helping us through this crisis, but in the long term we need solutions in the community for an increasing frail and elderly population,” BHB added.
MP Robin Tucker’s Statement
Shadow Health Minister Robin Tucker said, “Broadly the issue of having insufficient patient beds and the staffing issues at KEMH is part of a much larger problem. For starters, taxpayers paid over $400 million to build a hospital with insufficient inpatient stay capacity. It’s pretty obvious just by looking at the design that it was not purpose built to accommodate the inpatient needs of our general population.
“Families need to be strongly encouraged to take their family members home and care for them. Undoubtably most people want their relatives at home but they simply cannot care for them.
“There must also be tangible support be put in place to help. A day care is a help, but Bermuda needs more affordable nursing homes and greater caregiver support.
“It’s unsurprising that staff at BHB are reaching a breaking point. They endured and supported us through the pandemic, yet we saw through the recent silent protest that while they took care of us, we weren’t taking care of them, and after giving so much them, we now ask them to give more.
“We have known for years that a third of our population will be seniors by 2026, and that chronic conditions are becoming more prevalent. We haven’t adequately prepared for this day so much of what we are seeing play out at KEMH is sadly predicable. We are in a crisis, and families can help by taking home their loved ones to alleviate some of the strain on the hospital and its staff.”
The structure of the hospital is less the issue than the issue of families or society being able to take care of the seniors in another place. If there was sufficient other accommodations, then the hospital would be sufficient. But saying that wouldn’t hit the political point she is trying to make.
There needs to be sufficient and affordable retirement and nursing homes. Existing ones are too expensive. There should be free for residents government ones.
Bermuda mismanagement of public purse, excessive PLP borrowing and spending and overheating of the economy,not maintaining pension funds and the soon to be mismanaged Corporate Income Tax, could have done so much more for Bermudians. We can’t afford to live in our own country.
Free government ones? Why should they be free? I think they should be affordable, and perhaps ones’ pensions should be applied to support their residence in these facilities, but I don’t believe they should be free.
The rest of your comment is ridiculous politicking.
Do you think PLP has or ever will do anything wrong?
At every opportunity the PLP bring up the airport as a bad deal. Compared to the ACW it is one of the best deals ever. It pays for itself. The ACW on the other hand was more expensive and totally unfit for purpose. It’s built like a 4 star hotel. Massive Atrium. Wasted space on every floor to include an unmanned reception, single rooms with en suite bathrooms. Lunacy.
As to care homes, the Grand Atlantic could have been used and reconfigured during its many changes and $150 million cost. Who knows what it is now being used for as there is radio silence. Then there are the many government buildings, left to rot away, that could be redeveloped if anyone in the PLP had any sense. Instead they are left to decay and then demolished.