Jenny Cooke, a visitor to the Castel Hospital, is appalled at the conditions being endured by patients during building work. (Picture by Adrian Miller, 0599843)
WORK on Albecq Ward at the Castel Hospital is being carried out in an ‘uncaring manner’ around patients suffering from mental illnesses, hospital visitor Jenny Cooke has claimed.
‘I do feel the people of Guernsey should be made aware,’ said Mrs Cooke. ‘Are we a society so inept that this is acceptable?’
Mrs Cooke described the ward as a ‘soul-destroying place’. She said the current work, which includes replacing floors and drilling into walls, was too noisy for the patients to endure.
‘There is no privacy, even in newly-created single rooms. These patients are ill and require peace and calm.’ She felt that such work would not be carried out around patients at the Princess Elizabeth Hospital.
‘I am not criticising the staff.
But this work has not been thought through.’
Health minister Hunter Adam has denied the claims and defended the way the work is being carried out.
‘I know there is disruption and nobody likes that, but it is progressing and that is very important,’ he said.
‘It is looking a lot better.’
Deputy Adam visited the site 10 days ago and more recently and said it had improved in that time.
He also said that patients with mental illnesses cannot be moved.
‘The patients have always been put first. Progress has even been delayed in their interests. If staff believe work is too disruptive to patients, it will stop.’
In his response, to Mrs Cooke’s letter to the Guernsey Press, Health and Social Services minister Deputy Hunter Adam writes: ‘Your correspondent states that this work would not have been contemplated on a medical or surgical ward, but I can advise that the department is about to undertake some upgrading work on Victoria Wing at the Princess Elizabeth Hospital and that this work will be undertaken while the patients are using those facilities.’
The correspondence can be read in full in our letters section.
Article posted on 28th June, 2008 - 9.30am
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