(Barbados Nation) A Government minister yesterday termed Barbadians who abandoned their elderly relatives as “unfeeling leeches” as he sought nearly a quarter of a million dollars to supply additional beds and equipment to the Geriatric Hospital.
Saying such acts of neglect should be repudiated by all right-thinking people, Minister of Social Care Steve Blackett told the House of Assembly that these senior citizens, who in their prime would have contributed significantly to the welfare and well-being of their young relatives, were now being placed “on the dump heap of life and forgotten as if they never existed”.
“This state of affairs is so very wrong, in my estimation, and must be called out whenever it is detected. I consider them unfeeling leeches calling themselves family, relatives and friends . . . . Sometimes, relatives ignore their loved ones, not knowing if they have eaten or had anything to drink, but as soon as they are hospitalized, they move in like termites in the night, shedding their wings and taking over the property as if it was theirs.”
Blackett was introducing a resolution for Bds$244 014 to purchase 40 beds, bedside lockers, rails, headboards, footboards, trolleys and other accoutrements for Wards 2B and 3B of the Geriatric Hospital at Beckles Road, St Michael.
