BB-2-aa
Sharon Amos
VISIT TO KINGSTON CONVALESCENT HOSPITAL, Parade St, Kingston (Mrs. Dolphin Manager) 5/4/78
Debbie T. and Sharon
-this was quite a painful experience to see this place. Mrs. Dolphin was a kindly lady about 65 years old
-the place is not horrible in terms of the physical looks of it but it is the lack of care to the children and the malnutrition that is horrible
-little babies in one section were in the toilet/ some were lying on the floor, one had her head right by the toilet/ others were sitting on the pot and an aid [aide] was feeding them porrage (at dinner time) while they were on the pot (she was using one bowl for all of them
-some of them were so thin and malnurished that they were quite passive
-one child was whimpering and the aid stuck her on the potty (not very gently)
-one “spastic” woman in her 20’s (retarded too) was lying on the floor/ people were stepping over her
(with all the corruption in govt it is rather sickning to see such horrible conditions, Mrs Dolphin said they were understaffed /she said that some of the parents bring in the children for medical care but end up leaving them/ or some of them take the children home and then the children return to the same poor condition they were in before)
-the reason we went here in the first place was this was the place that ran an ad inthe paper about 8 abandoned children and JJsaid to call her and offer to take them/ all those parents showed up but we took in some literature about us and said maybe we could help in the future
(that same day we saw Wills and he said he had been given reports about the poor condition in the children’s ward Public Hospital and he said it was due to corruption, that staff were ripping off the food and supplies allotted to the hospital by Greenand he was doing some checking on it – I told him about Kingston Convalescent Hospital – he acted like he was very upset about it)