The Tribune

By ALESHA CADET

Tribune Features Reporter

acadet@tribunemedia.net

THE staff at the Geriatric Hospital, located at the Sandilands Rehabilitation Centre, are proud of 50 years of service and achievements, and are preparing to host a series of events for the remainder of the year in celebration of the milestone anniversary.

Under the theme “Age Ain’t Nothing but a Number”, an opening ceremony and church service was held in the driveway of the Geriatric Hospital yesterday, kicking off the exciting lineup of things to look out for.

At the Geriatric Hospital, the elderly with medical, social and psychiatric problems are care for.

“We want people to not view aging negatively. There is a stigma attached to mental health and geriatric aging, so we decided to use Ronnie Butler’s song title as our theme. This is a great achievement, celebrating 50 years, because in 1956 when the hospital started it was really started as a place to put indigent elderly persons and people who just had no place to go. Over the years we know that geriatric medicine has really evolved into an active subspeciality of medicine because persons worldwide are aging. Persons, especially in this region, between the ages 90 and 100, that age group is really growing because people are just living longer,” said Dr Agreta Eneas-Carey, geriatric consultant at the Geriatric Hospital.

Dr Carey said geriatric professionals have to really begin preparing themselves to deal with so many elderly patients. At the Geriatric Hospital, she said, they deal with a lot of patients living with arthritis, dementia, cardiovascular disease, depression and so on.

“There is a lot of sickness to deal with when you have people who live to be a certain age. However, we do have a fairly robust healthy older population also. The Geriatrics Hospital has come a long way from what it was like when it first started. We are quite proud of what we have to offer up at the Geriatric Hospital, where I feel like we have a state-of-the-art facility. Of course there is always room for improvement, but we are gradually improving and that is why we want to celebrate,” said Dr Carey.

Going forward, the hospital’s geriatric consultants will be featured on various talk shows and a part of several activities during the month of June to make people aware of what is happening in the world of geriatrics.

They will also partner with Doctors Hospital and the Ministry of Health to focus on aging and geriatric topics during the month of June, July and August, giving their health tips via local television and social media. Every Friday in June, the staff at the Geriatric Hospital will wear special T-shirts to celebrate.

“We try to encourage young people by just being on the radio to take care of themselves, because their bodies are made to last and function up until 70 and 80. Of course there are some changes that will occur, but no one should be bedridden, walking with a cane or have dementia in their 70s if they are taking care of themselves,” said Dr Carey.

As the celebrations continue, the hospital will also launch a “Keep It Cool” day where patrons will be treated to popsicles, ice-cream and snow cones. In addition, there will also be a special pampering day for patients.

“In the process we want to develop a historical wall in the hospital where we will have portraits of persons who have been instrumental in the development of geriatric medicine and the hospital over the 50 years. We want to have pictures of all of these persons adorning the walls of the hospital. That is a project that we are in the process of working on, hopefully to be unveiled in July. Moreover, we are going to relaunch our Adopt-a-Grandparent programme sometime this summer, inviting school children and the public to come in. It’s going to be a very active second half of 2015 as we try and celebrate our 50th,” said Dr Carey.