GOVERNMENT should step in and pay the thousands of dollars owed to two women who worked for three months without pay looking after mentally challenged residents of the charity Hope Homes, according to Opposition MP Louise Jackson.

And Mrs. Jackson seized upon this week's distribution to all homes of a glossy publicly-funded pamphlet about The Social Agenda as proof that Government had got its spending priorities all wrong.

Last week, this newspaper highlighted the cases of Oriel Dolmo, 77, and Patrona Scott, 58, who were told by Hope Homes that there was no money to pay them the thousands they were owed for looking after the residents, who had lived in poor conditions in an outbuilding on the grounds of Lefroy House in Sandys. Mrs. Dolmo was owed more than $8,000 and Mrs. Scott over $6,000, when the pair lost their jobs last week following the relocation of the residents by Government to a new premises.

Mrs. Jackson suggested the Government should pay the arrears to the women.

"Those women would have been within their rights to walk away, but they didn't because the residents needed them," Mrs. Jackson said. "The Government of this country walked away and left them there."

Health & Family Services Minister Patrice Minors said last week that she sympathised with the women, but that Hope Homes, and not Government, was responsible for finding the money to pay them.

Hope Homes executive director Ellen Douglas said last week the main reason for the lack of money was the pulling of a $160,000 Government grant, though Ms Minors said the money was cut because the charity had not provided the necessary documentation detailing how the grant was being spent.

"This pamphlet on the Social Agenda went out to every resident and it must have cost tens of thousands of dollars to do it," Mrs. Jackson said.

"It must have cost between $60,000 and $100,000 and I'd like to know who is benefiting, apart from the Progressive Labour Party.

"Here we are, when these two women, who are virtually saints, have not been paid, and there are people living in caves and on the beach. We have seniors in need of medication and suffering a whole litany of things, and we have a severe housing problem.

"And yet this Government decides to spend tens of thousands of dollars on what is basically an expensive public relations exercise."

She added that Government had been aware of the plight of the Hope Homes residents living in atrocious conditions in Sandys for some 19 months and also knew of the plight of the unpaid Hope Homes staff, since it had cut off the money supply. "These ladies soldiered on without being paid a penny and Government knew that but has turned its back on them," Mrs. Jackson said.

"The responsibility of the Ministry of Health & Family Services is to look after the health of the people of Bermuda. If you had a group of 11 to 13-year-old children and you left them to fend for themselves, then you would be ostracised.

"But these residents of Hope Homes were perhaps at a similar mental level and the Ministry cut off the grant and knew that the people looking after them were not being paid.

"It seems to me the least that Government could do would be to pay these women who have taken responsibility for the residents."

Reader LeeAnn Simmons, from Devonshire, sympathised so greatly with the women's plight that she sent a $300 cheque, payable to Mrs. Dolmo, bearing the words "God Bless You!"

"I just wanted to help," Ms Simmons wrote in a note.

Mrs. Dolmo said she was very grateful for Ms Simmons generosity. And she added that representatives of the Department of Financial Assistance had contacted her and she intended to meet with them next week. Mrs. Scott was considering legal action to retrieve what she was owed, Mrs. Dolmo added.