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Where are the forlorn elders dumped outside the hospital?
Kalubowila: Hospital CCTV cameras showed well-dressed persons arriving in three-wheelers and dumping the elderly persons outside the hospital
The plight of a group of elderly people abandoned by their families outside the South Teaching Hospital in Kohuwela has become a mystery with police denying reports that the group had been handed over to them.
Last week, hospital authorities found six elderly persons – five women and one man – abandoned at the hospital entrance.
They were feeble and senile and could not communicate where they had come from or how they came to be there.
PCR tests indicated negative results for COVID.
Investigations by hospital sources revealed that the six people had been abandoned by their families.
Hospital CCTV cameras showed well-dressed persons arriving in three-wheelers and dumping the elderly persons outside the hospital.
Government Medical Officers Forum president, Dr . Rukshan Bellanwella, said the abandoned elders had been handed over to the hospital police post along with the CCTV footage but the hospital police post and the Kohuwala Police denied that any such incident had been brought to their attention.
Dr. Bellanwella said police had told him the group had been handed over to the Bureau for Prevention of Abuse of Women and Children (BPAWC) for action.
He had received a letter from BPAWC saying it would work with the Ministry of Women’s Affairs to shelter the group in a home and that the CCTV footage would be used to trace and take action against the people who had abandoned them.
BPAWC Director SSP Dharshika Ranasinghe, said, however, that the group had not been handed over to them yet.
“We asked the hospital authorities to inform us once the medical checkups were made. But so far we have not received any information,” she said.