Concern about patients unable to feed themselves and going hungry as a consequence of a lack of supervision at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital has been addressed by hospital chiefs.

A new regime is in place that will ensure that no food tray is taken back before a patient has been offered help with feeding.

And relatives and volunteers are being invited to learn how to offer assistance at meal times to patients who, either through incapacity, disablement or old age, cannot feed themselves.

The response comes a day after shadow health minister Louise Jackson repeated her concerns about the feeding of patients at the KEMH, and also at reports that the hospital is still using an outside container as a temporary morgue.

In a statement the Bermuda Hospitals Board chief executive Joan Dillas-Wright addressed the feeding concerns by saying it was a priority that all patients be fed.

?We have recently improved on some procedures and specific guidelines are in place to address this issue. Patients who need assistance with feeding are identified and prepared to receive meals,? she said. ?A staff member is assigned to each patient needing assistance. Food trays are not returned until a patient is offered help with feeding.?

She said that while there may be occasions when a patient declines food, all efforts are made to encourage each patient to eat.

Mrs. Dillas-Wright added: ?In addition we invite family members to assist with feeding their relatives, we send volunteers to wards to help feed and there are a number of charitable groups who have offered assistance at meal times.

?We are presently organising feeding classes for volunteers to assure the safety of patients.?

In response to media reports that bodies are still being housed in temporary refrigerated unit at the hospital, the BHB neither confirmed or denied that was the current situation, saying ?contingency plans? are often necessary and added its renovated and expanded purpose-built morgue would be open by the end of the month and would be of adequate size for the Island?s population.

Mrs. Jackson has accepted an invitation to see the new feeding proceedures