Nurses protest poor conditions at Palms
Visit discovers stench-filled ward with mattresses on the floor
By Edlyn Benfield
Stabroek News
June 5, 2003
Nurses at the Palms home for the elderly are protesting over what they say are deplorable conditions with some residents sleeping on mattresses on the floor.
Stabroek News and other members of the media paid a visit there yesterday while several members of the Home’s 60-odd staffers staged a sit-in protesting working conditions.
Reporters entered the compound without being questioned or even briefly delayed by the two aged security personnel stationed in the guard hut near the gates. After speaking briefly with the nurses, the group was taken through one of the wards where a stench permeated the air and some patients could be seen lying on beds with mattresses which did not have sheets while others lay on mattresses placed on the floor.
Members of the media avoided the washroom area after two female reporters were almost overcome with nausea and had to be led away from the ward. This, however, was not before it was observed that the walkway leading to another section of the institution was almost completely submerged by water.
The nurses, who work eight-hour shifts, said they were forced to bathe patients on the platform instead of using the bathroom because the area had become dangerously slippery.
“The night shift is horrible because only one light is working in Ward Six,” one nurse complained and another one said that the security personnel were completely useless. She pointed out that working at the Palms was especially risky for nurses on the night shift. “Thieves does calmly walk in the compound when the place get dark and pick up zinc sheets and other items and exit right before the eyes of the security guards.”
Other complaints were that one nurse was assigned to 41 patients; the female cleaning staff often have to fetch buckets of water up three flights of stairs as there is no potable water available; the institution is under-staffed and recently, there has been an influx of both male and female mentally-ill patients.
“Most of these patients are very young, and they just dump them here,” one nurse declared. She pointed out a young woman who she said attempted to assault two nurses just two days ago and had to be subdued.
“We want to be placed under the Ministry of Health. The Ministry of Labour, Human Services and Social Security are not paying any attention to our predicament,” lamented a member of the protesting group. She said the Palms had once been under the Ministry of Health but that this was changed in 1992.
When contacted later, Permanent Secretary (PS), Mitra Devi Ali acknowledged that there had been no rehabilitation at the Palms for a number of years but said she was unaware of the current crisis.
“The only complaint we received has been about food missing from the Palms. The nurses are stealing the food and getting fat, did you notice their size?” Ali said the ministry was not the Mayor and City Council (M&CC) and as such was not responsible for any flooding which occurred in the compound.
She noted that money had been allocated for dealing with repairs in this year’s budget.
The PS also said that the security guards were being “manhandled” by the nurses and were afraid of them. She did not entertain a suggestion that younger, more able-bodied guards be entrusted with protecting the institution.
Ali further questioned how the media had managed to enter the facility and indicated that “the government has its own rules when it comes to dealing with the media and disseminating information.”
She said the staff might have been furious because members of a committee set up to investigate the circumstances surrounding the death of former resident, Ronald Downer, went there yesterday.
The Palms administrator, Justina McLennon, was unavailable at the time of Stabroek News’ visit and subsequent efforts to contact her proved futile.
