currently filling beds in the King Edward VII Memorial Hospital.

That's the opinion of hospital administrator Mr. Hume Martin who has called for more attention to be paid to home care to ease the hospital's burden.

Mr. Martin was responding to concerns over the number of patients staying for long periods in the hospital. This rose from 23 in April to 38 in May.

"It is an acute care hospital and should be for people coming in for acute care and then going home,'' he said. "The average length of stay should be eight to ten days.

"But often we have elderly people and also young people who may have been involved in a cycle accident and their families cannot take them back home. It is cases where family members are not at home to provide feeding, dressing and bathing and other needs.'' Mr. Martin denied that the cost of the non-acute patients was $500,000-a-year -- a figure quoted on ZBM television last night.

He said the whole community should look at how to solve the problem with the help of the Ministry of Health. "There is going to have to be some investment in this. There is a need to pump money into parish homes so that they are run by state registered nurses. Qualified round-the-clock nursing care is needed.

"In the extended care unit we have 102 beds. Probably 20 of the patients from there could go to what I would describe as one of the parish homes or a rest home. But those homes need resources given to them.

"There are some that argue that the solution would be to add more beds to the hospital, but the system has probably had over-emphasis on institutionalised care, which is funded.

"There is insufficient resources going to home care and the rest homes. That is the direction that needs to be addressed.'' World home health care scheme launched in Bermuda -- see Page 2