PLANS to close Lennox Castle Hospital, which cares for more than 600
of the most seriously mentally-retarded patients in the West of
Scotland, will be laid before Greater Glasgow Health Board next month.
The run-down is expected to take place over the next six or seven
years with the majority of patients being placed in ''ordinary'' houses
in the community. Health unions and relatives' groups were concerned
yesterday that the health board envisages only 64 places being required
for patients requiring ''a very safe and structured environment'' in
continuing long-stay care.
Those in Lennox Castle are now categorised as people with learning
disabilities. At worst, this can mean people wheelchair-bound, unable to
communicate, who have to be fed and toileted.
The proposals -- part of a strategy drawn up by the Greater Community
and Mental Health Services Trust, the health board, and the social work
department -- were put before the trust yesterday at its first open
public meeting. A consultation paper is expected to be issued next
month.
The objective it sets out is to provide ''social'' support for the
bulk of patients in good quality ''ordinary'' housing, adapted or
purpose-built, on a small scale and close to local shops and amenities
but separate from their support.
Other requirements will include ''something meaningful to do''
including employment, leisure, education, social opportunities, and
domestic activities. The trust will also supply 256 continuing care beds
from small community-based sites -- 64 in each of the four social work
districts in the city.
A trust spokesman later emphasised that the proposals were not cast in
tablets of stone and that the level of 64 long-term care beds for the
most vulnerable would be subject to assessment of patients' needs.
However, Mr Jim Devine, Unison organiser, accused the health service
of opting out of provision for people with learning difficulties and the
young chronic sick.
''Many of these people have spent most of their lives there. These are
very seriously ill individuals whose primary presentation is severe
mental handicap with associated problems, behavioural difficulties,
sometimes epilepsy and physical handicap as well. They certainly need
24-hour care.''
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