For a number of years, families with loved ones residing in long-term care have consistently raised the same concern: essential maintenance care services are absent.

Dental conditions have gone untreated. Hearing loss has been attributed to the natural ageing process rather than addressed clinically. Podiatric conditions have progressed to the point of limiting mobility. Vision deterioration has contributed to falls, social isolation and loss of independence. These are not isolated or exceptional cases — they represent the everyday experience of many long-term care residents.

What is particularly significant is that these are not complex or extraordinary medical needs. They are routine, preventive services with a direct bearing on dignity, comfort and quality of life. Services of this nature existed previously but were gradually withdrawn, leaving families to arrange off-site appointments that are frequently impractical or altogether impossible for frail residents.

Over the past eight years, this gap has become increasingly apparent. Families and caregivers have endeavoured to compensate where they are able but the system has not kept pace with the growing needs of an ageing population.

This is not a matter of supplementary or luxury care. It is a matter of basic clinical maintenance — services that prevent pain, reduce the risk of infection, preserve mobility and support a resident’s capacity to remain engaged in daily life. Where these needs go unaddressed, the consequences are foreseeable: avoidable suffering, preventable deterioration and increased demand on acute healthcare services.

A practical and considered solution has been developed. The Long-Term Care Committee, in collaboration with the Citizens Reform Group, has put forward a proposal to reintroduce structured maintenance care within the hospital setting, delivered through mobile clinical units and sessional specialists. This model does not require new infrastructure or significant system reform. It provides essential care to residents within their existing environment, restoring a standard that many families had reasonably expected to already be in place.

Fundamentally, this proposal affirms that long-term care residents are not an administrative afterthought but individuals whose comfort, dignity and wellbeing remain of continuing concern.

How a society tends to its most vulnerable members is, in many respects, a measure of its values. The reintroduction of maintenance care services within long-term care facilities is not solely a health policy matter — it is an expression of collective responsibility.

Long-term care residents deserve more than basic survival. They are entitled to care that upholds their dignity, supports their comfort and sustains their quality of life.

Further details of the proposal are outlined in the accompanying White and Green papers prepared jointly by the Long-Term Care Committee and the Citizens Reform Group.

The proposal has been submitted to King Edward VII Memorial Hospital’s administration for consideration.

• Charles O’Brien is a member of the Citizens Reform Group — A movement of the Bermuda Reform Coalition