Dr Fuad Khan, Min­is­ter of Health, has ac­knowl­edged that the care of el­der­ly peo­ple for­sak­en in the health­care sys­tem was cost­ing the Gov­ern­ment $15,000 per month per pa­tient. Many of these geri­atric cas­es are not, in the truest sense of the term, pa­tients. They have been wil­ful­ly aban­doned by their fam­i­lies and left in the care of the state. Dr Khan did not share spe­cif­ic num­bers, but not­ed that out of 800 el­der­ly pa­tients ad­mit­ted to St Ann's Hos­pi­tal, 600 were what he de­scribed as "so­cial cas­es" - peo­ple left to fend for them­selves.

Some geri­atric res­i­dents at the St James Geron­tol­ogy Cen­tre, tech­ni­cal­ly a hos­pi­tal spe­cial­is­ing in the ail­ments of the aged, have lived there for the last two decades. This is a sit­u­a­tion like­ly to prompt emo­tion­al re­spons­es, but the for­mal gov­ern­ment re­sponse to the sit­u­a­tion must be as cool and cal­cu­lat­ing as the im­pulse that leads peo­ple to leave the el­der­ly at hos­pi­tals so that they can par­ty at Car­ni­val.

The fact that large num­bers of el­der­ly peo­ple have been al­lowed to live out their days in en­vi­ron­ments where their needs have been met by the State speaks well of at least this arm of the pub­lic health­care sys­tem. But com­pas­sion alone will not man­age this prob­lem.

There may be le­git­i­mate in­stances, among the hun­dreds of el­der­ly peo­ple left be­hind in lo­cal hos­pi­tals, of fam­i­lies who are gen­uine­ly un­able to care for their aged, but it's pos­si­ble that the pub­lic health­care sys­tem, with the best of in­ten­tions, may be abet­ting scams to cheat in­firm cit­i­zens out of their pen­sions and prop­er­ty.

In the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion, the gov­ern­ment is is­su­ing pay­ments to pen­sion­ers and the dis­abled, but these peo­ple are al­ready in gov­ern­ment-fund­ed care and the pen­sion and dis­abil­i­ty pay­ments are be­ing used by their rel­a­tives. The Health Min­is­ter put a firm fin­ger on the is­sue when he said that he planned to lodge an ap­peal with the Min­istry of the Peo­ple and So­cial De­vel­op­ment to stop dis­trib­ut­ing pen­sion and dis­abil­i­ty cheques to pen­sion­ers ward­ed for more than 30 days.

Let doc­tors and so­cial work­ers make the ex­cep­tions af­ter in­ves­ti­ga­tion of the cir­cum­stances and move with dis­patch to end this dou­ble-spend on geri­atric sup­port. It's al­so clear that there is a need for for­malised pub­lic-sec­tor geri­atric care and res­i­den­cy. Di­rec­tor of the Di­vi­sion of Age­ing Dr Jen­nifer Rouse notes that the pop­u­la­tion is grey­ing and the 156,000 peo­ple now list­ed as el­der­ly will rise by one per­cent each year.

Dr Rouse an­tic­i­pates a need for greater ca­pac­i­ty in res­i­den­tial care. Of the 131 homes for the el­der­ly in Trinidad and To­ba­go, 85 are func­tion­ing and there is a need for greater ca­pac­i­ty to man­age the needs of the grow­ing el­der pop­u­la­tion. Dr Rouse en­vi­sions gov­ern­ment and pri­vate-sec­tor col­lab­o­ra­tion on res­i­dence-care mod­el homes and more growth in the el­der-care sec­tor over the next few years.

These new fa­cil­i­ties might be pur­pose-built or adapt­ed from ex­ist­ing struc­tures and of­fer a re­al home for old­er, in­firm cit­i­zens who find them­selves with­out the sup­port sys­tems nec­es­sary to con­tin­ue a dig­ni­fied life. The win­dow for cre­at­ing these im­proved fa­cil­i­ties and for es­tab­lish­ing a vi­able, well-mon­i­tored geri­atric-care sec­tor in both the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors is rapid­ly clos­ing as the num­bers of el­der­ly peo­ple who will need care steadi­ly in­crease be­yond ex­ist­ing ca­pac­i­ty.

What's clear is that the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion is in­tol­er­a­ble and Dr Khan's com­mit­ment to mak­ing changes puts some com­mon­sense be­hind the com­pas­sion that's led us to this un­for­tu­nate sit­u­a­tion.