WITH the help of shelters and the promotion of family involvement throughout recovery, senior medical officer at Sir John Golding Rehabilitation Centre Dr Rory Dixon says the number of social cases at the institution has decreased.

Dixon said that when he joined the rehabilitation centre in 2006, it had approximately 12 social cases, but that number is now down to three.

A social case is a patient who has been abandoned by family members at a health facility and left with nowhere to call home. The country-wide issue impacting the public health system, health centres take these individuals in.

Dixon said the rehabilitation centre has been doing a good job of reducing its numbers. He attributed the decline to screening processes at the institution before enrolment and help from charity groups such as the Mustard Seed Communities Jacob’s Ladder and Missionaries of the Poor to house some of the social cases.

“For the process of admission for rehabilitation, persons are screened, so the family has to come in with the patient. We need to make sure that there is good family support because after rehabilitation we have to make sure they have somewhere to go,” said Dixon.

He said that during screening, patients or relatives are required to provide proof of a place of residence after rehabilitation and plans to facilitate their transition from the centre to home.

“We also encourage good interaction with the family through the rehabilitation. We have what we call family conferences, where the family is brought in and we discuss what is happening with the patient, what are the expectations of the patient, what we expect the patient to be able to do for themselves, what we expect the family to do to support the patient so that everybody is up to date with the progress,” he told the Jamaica Observer at last week’s Monday Exchange.

He further noted that when a patient is to be discharged, family members are trained on how to care for them at home.

Dixon also thanked charity groups for helping to house social cases that put a strain on the facility’s resources.

“We have a special patient who I have asked sisters from Missionaries of the Poor to help us with. He actually occupies an entire section of the ward, therefore, blocking the ability for us to admit three more patients,” said Dixon.

“He ended up there because on one of our clinic days, his caretaker or relative brought him in under the guise of coming to the clinic and we found him in the bathroom after the clinic was finished. We have had him since then, and we haven’t been able to find anywhere to put him as yet, so that has put a little damper on our space,” said the senior medical officer, later adding that he is hopeful Missionaries of the Poor will be able to once again assist.

While the number of social cases at the rehabilitation centre has trended down, Dixon said the steps taken to ensure a patient has somewhere to go after their rehabilitation are not perfect.

“A lot of the time things change. For example, the breadwinner who comes in, when he is in, he is unable to earn. If he doesn’t own the house that he is in, he is unable to pay the rent and sometimes may lose the house, so there is now a situation where there is nowhere for this person to go. He wasn’t a social case in the beginning, but they are a social case now, and that is just one example of an unfortunate event.

“There are [family members] who you expect them to present when they come, but when we admit them [the patient], the family disappears or we are unable to contact the family, so you cannot really predict who will become a social case; but we try as best as possible to screen patients coming in,” he explained.

He added: “We are aware that this is always a possibility, and we try as best as possible to have all the contact numbers that are possible. It comes down to trust at the end of the day. You don’t really know, but it doesn’t prevent us from providing assistance.”

Dixon further lamented the lack of resources for middle-aged Jamaicans who are abandoned by their family members.

“The Government agencies don’t really cater to persons over the age of 18 and between 18 and 60 [years old]. We know that over 60 [years old] they have golden age homes, and under 18 [years old] there are organisations, but we have to rely on other services like Missionaries of the Poor to take on social cases between those age groups,” said Dixon.

He noted that one particular patient at the rehabilitation centre has been a social case since she was a child. Now that she is an adult, he said efforts to find her a home have become more difficult.

“We have to create more facilities for people like her who are in the middle-age group,” he said.