Jan 09 - GSD Reveals ‘Shocking Failure of Vulnerable Mental Health Patient’
The GSD has today criticised the Government for allowing a ‘vulnerable and mentally ill person, deemed by medical professionals not fit to stand trial, to be transferred from prison, where he has been awaiting trial on remand, to the KGV Hospital.
The Party insists that the family of the individual has appealed to Government Ministers for a proper care plan for him. They add that he has been denied the proper care necessary during his time in prison.
A GSD statement on the matter adds, ‘it will be recalled that the GSD Government was severely criticised by the then GSLP-Liberal Opposition when a mentally ill individual spent five months in prison because professionals at the KGV did not deem him suitable for care at the hospital. In that case the health professionals made the assessment, rightly or wrongly, that the individual in question should not be cared for in the KGV hospital.
‘In a meeting with the Minister for Social Services ten months ago, the family was promised that a social worker would be assigned to the individual within two weeks and a multi-disciplinary meeting, with all the relevant care professionals, would be arranged for a meaningful outcome to the situation. The family is still waiting for the social worker or a response from the Minister to the many correspondences.
‘It has taken the family personal legal action and an angry Judge, who has demanded a report, to resolve this issue and have this individual transferred to the KGV. All this to highlight the outrageous flouting of this vulnerable adult’s right to adequate treatment, not to mention any meaningful intervention from the Ministers in question.
‘Minister Costa, when in Opposition, made much of the failings he perceived within the Social Services, pointing out in his press release of February 2011:
“This raises very serious human issues about the dignity, care and well-being of our most vulnerable, which cannot be brushed under the carpet simply because they expose a serious policy failure on the part of the Government.”
Perhaps the Government would now care to respond to its own statement of when it was in Opposition.’
