Backs turned on the elderly
Barbadians are not only abandoning their elderly relatives at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) but are also resorting to “dumping” them at the Psychiatric Hospital.
This shocking revelation was disclosed yesterday by Minister of Health and Wellness, Senator Lisa Cummins, as she led off debate on the Older Persons (Care and Protection) Bill, 2026, in the Senate.
Speaking during the session, Cummins revealed that elderly patients were being discarded at medical facilities with absolutely no follow-up interest in their welfare by relatives. She recounted a tour of the Black Rock, St Michael facility following her appointment as minister, where she discovered the disturbing trend.
“The exact scenario that I described at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital exists at the Psychiatric Hospital. You have persons who have equally been abandoned,” Cummins said.
She expressed particular distress regarding the lack of visitation, noting that when she queried whether family members visited the elderly – even those who could not return home due to medical reasons – the answer was a resounding no.
Neglected
“I asked the nurses and the doctors: ‘Do the family members come and visit them? The builders of our nation, the person sometimes in whose house you live? The person who may have sent you to school? Do they at least come and visit these persons?’ And the nurses and the doctors said to me: ‘No’,” the minister reported.
“Save and except for one or two persons here or there, families aren’t going to visit them. So I’m going to start my comments today by making an appeal to families,” she urged.
The abandoning of the elderly has been a recurring national discussion.
The Barbados Association of Retired Persons (BARP) have long been advocating for legislation to deal with elder abuse and abandonment with president Marilyn Rice-Bowen previously indicating that BARP had met with Government concerning the drafting of the legislation.
“We need the elder abuse legislation to protect our elders. It will protect them from financial abuse, from physical abuse, from abandonment. The legislation will give the authorities the teeth they need to make sure that our seniors can live their lives in indigence and dignity,” Rice-Bowen said last year.
Yesterday Cummins noted that the neglect was blatant, recalling instances where social workers contacted family members only to be told, “We’re not coming to get them”.
While acknowledging that some families might lack the resources or capacity to provide adequate care, the Minister took issue with the justification that abandoning relatives at a hospital was being “cruel to be kind.”
“Some of them have said to us they feel as though the safest place for their relative is not at home alone, but it is in the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. However, from our policy perspective, that’s not the best place for them,” Cummins asserted.
She issued a heartfelt plea to Barbadians, reminding them that medical staff should not have to substitute for family.
“The nurses and the doctors in the institution have become their family because you are not. It is the emotional and the mental knowledge that your family is not checking for you,” she said.
“They’re not coming to bring some snacks, and even if they don’t have to buy anything, they’re not even coming with time—30 minutes, this could cost you nothing.”
The Minister highlighted that the lack of engagement was evident across the board, affecting not only the QEH and the Psychiatric Hospital but also district hospitals such as the St Lucy and St Philip facilities.
“Family members not only are leaving them there, but they’re not coming back even to visit them. There’s something fundamentally wrong with that,” she declared.
While the new legislation seeks to legally protect elderly persons from abuse, Cummins emphasised that laws alone are insufficient, calling for a “change of hearts, a change of minds, and a culture shift” in how the nation treats its senior citizens. ( MB)
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