No Room at Bellevue: Island's only mental health hospital forced to turn away patients
Published:Sunday | May 1, 2011 | 12:00 AM
Tyrone Reid, Sunday Gleaner Reporter
PATIENTS SUFFERING from mental health disorders and in need of inpatient care may not be admitted at the Bellevue Hospital (BVH), which is the only hospital in Jamaica dedicated to the mentally ill, because the hospital is fully booked.
The Sunday Gleaner understands that sometimes the hospital is forced to turn away patients who require institutional care.
Bellevue, which has "the legal responsibility to accept all persons needing psychiatric care", can currently accommodate a maximum of 800 patients. When contacted by The Sunday Gleaner, the South East Regional Health Authority (SERHA) confirmed that there was no room at the Kingston-based hospital.
"The BVH census to date is approximately 800, consisting of patients in the acute, subacute, chronic, and rehabilitative categories," SERHA said.
criteria for admission
While the hospital's policy is to not turn away patients who meet the criteria for admission, there are times the institution is forced to send the patients elsewhere to seek the help they need, according to the SERHA.
The regional health authority explained that the decentralisation and integration of mental health into the general health-care policy to accommodate psychiatric inpatients at general hospitals such as the Kingston Public Hospital (KPH) and the Spanish Town Hospital has reduced the demand for bed space at the BVH. "Consequently, patients deemed eligible for admission are rarely turned away. However, if such a case arises, BVH seeks assistance from the KPH and UHWI psychiatric wards," SERHA stated.
Because the BVH is a public hospital, it does not turn away referrals. "Instead, we try to accommodate all patients who need admission."
On the other hand, a highly placed source at the BVH told our news team that potential patients are routinely turned away: "It's not a daily occurrence, but it's not rare." The source said that the inability of the hospital to accept these patients who meet the standard for admission is a potentially dangerous situation for both the patient and the public because either one could end up harming the other.
A call to Bellevue Hospital's admission room confirmed that the institution was fully booked.
When asked if the hospital could take in a patient last Friday, the BVH employee said: "Not today. The hospital really doesn't have any space for male or female."
The employee explained that while there was no more bed space, the patient would still be assessed and treated by a doctor, and if he or she met the admission criteria, a date would be given for the patient to return in two or three days when, hopefully, a bed space would be available.
"We try our utmost best to find space, but if we can't find space, we tell them to come back," the employee added.
When asked about the number of patients currently at the hospital, Devon Williams, Bellevue Hospital's director of nursing, said, "It's best for you to speak with the CEO."
An attempt to get a comment from David Dobson, the hospital's CEO, was unsuccessful because he had left office for the day.
Written responses provided by SERHA revealed that the BVH admits two to six patients per day, and discharges two to three patients per day. SERHA said the mental health hospital has an active social work department which deals with the discharge and reintegration process for those who become productive and well again.
Bellevue Hospital, situated on 123 acres of land on Windward Road in Kingston, was built for custodial care before antipsychotic medications were available. At its birth, the hospital was designed to accommodate nearly 3,000 patients. That number was reduced to 1,500 in 1990, and then to 800.
The hospital came into existence as a separate institution for the care and treatment of mental disease in 1861. However, prior to that, it was connected to the nation's high seat of medicine - the KPH - and was known as the Jamaica Lunatic Asylum.