I refer to the article published in The Star on page 6 on May 10. This was about a 86- year-old lady who has been staying in the hospital for over two years and refuses to go home, although she is fit for discharge. The way the article is written it seems to be trying to engender public sympathy for the 86-year-old hospital patient who has been warded in the hospital for the past two years or more. It also tries to portray the hospital authorities in a bad light as being

without sympathy for the plight of a senior citizen.

The words used in the title imply that the patient is a ‘rightful’ resident in the hospital as if the hospital is a ‘home’ and the hospital authorities are trying to ‘remove’ her from her ‘residence’. This is a blatant piece of sensationalistic journalism which does not present the situation fairly and tries to turn the opinion of the public against the hospital authorities. After all, who would not have sympathy for a frail old lady in danger of losing her ‘home’ to a nameless, faceless unsympathetic government authority?

Don't get me wrong, I am all for the protection and help for the most disadvantaged and vulnerable members of our society for after all the true measure of our humanity is the way we treat those who are most helpless and disenfranchised. But let us look at the issue in a more calm and rational manner. Public hospitals are not chronic care facilities. They were never planned, designed or equipped for chronic care of patients like nursing homes are. Patient beds are limited and for every bed that is occupied by patients who refuse to go home, there is one less bed for a patient who really needs admission for treatment. The Penang Hospital is chronically overcrowded with wards filled to the brim and then more.

Imagine if everyone decides that the hospital is a nice place to say and refuses to go home. The hospital provides three square meals a day, clean sheets, nice beds, free laundry service with room service (nurses) to boot! Where would newly admitted patients be warded? Would you yourself want to stay in a hospital ward with 50 or sixty other patients? Some wards have so many patients that patients can literally shake hands with their neighbours without getting out of bed.

It seems to me that the patient and family are blatantly taking advantage of the hospital and using it as a cheap (or free – you don't have to pay hospital charges if you never get discharged!) ‘nursing home’. The fact that the lady's family visits her everyday means that she has family to go home to. The family should be ashamed of themselves for their selfish, inconsiderate and antisocial behaviour by not taking the lady home when she is fit for discharge.

Every government hospital has their share of ‘chronic’ patients. This includes patients who were picked up off the streets and those ‘dumped’ by irresponsible family members. When these patients are ready for discharge, the hospital tries hard to persuade the family members to take them home, that is, if the family members can be contacted at all. Many nurses have experienced having the phone slammed down when the try to contact family members of elderly patients. Some family members just refuse to answer telephone calls from the hospital or they would come to the hospital and scold the nurses for insisting on them taking their family members home.

Those without family members would be placed in government nursing homes by the social service worker. Some family members with political connections would try to get politicians to call the hospital and instruct (no, command) that a particular patient be kept in hospital. This political interference is very much resented by hospital doctors and nurses as interference in their clinical decision making and rightly so.

These ever so ‘helpful’ politicians should try and persuade the family members to take their relative home but, in fact, increase the burden of th hospital in caring for ‘well’ patients while conveniently overlooking the  fact that they are doing a disservice to other constituents who actually require inpatient care and are unable to get a bed. The should be trying to find alternative accommodation or nursing home placement for these patients but take the easy way out by arm twisting the hospital to keep ‘well’ patients whose families refuse to take them home.

In addition, the hospital has many bacteria lurking and everyone that stays needlessly in the hospital is a potential victim of a serious or life-threatening infection which would entail more cost for antibiotic treatment.

I am sure the reporter who wrote this article did not stalk the hospital wards looking for human interest stories to write. She must have been alerted to the patient's condition by an someone who has an ulterior motive in trying to gain public sympathy for the lady in an attempt to keep this lady in hospital longer (forever?). The Star is a participant in this shameful attempt to exploit government hospitals. In future, I hope newspaper editors are more cautious in publishing these sort of articles.