CHENNAI: St Joseph’s hospice in Kancheepuram is innocent of all the allegations against it, a fact-finding team from People’s Watch, an NGO, has said.“The hospice is functioning in the place with proper permission and it is government officials who are delaying the process of granting the renewal certificate,” said former MLA M H Jawahirullah, who was heading the 12-member fact finding team. The team also visited inmates who had been shifted to many other places. The team said it was not able to track most of the inmates. Government officials did not tell them where the elderly had been accommodated.
A few inmates whom the team met were interested in going back to the hospice, said Jawahirullah.
“323 elderly people were shifted from the hospice, but government officials claim only 290 are in their care. This raises the question as to what happened to the remaining 33,” he said.There are flaws on the side of the hospice management as well, like not having a permanent doctor to declare a person dead. Once a person dies, they inform the village authorities and the police and bury them, but do not consult any doctor, said A Marx, Chairperson of NCHRO.
“But, when we spoke to the officials, both at the panchayat and district levels, everybody seems to recognise the work. Some officials even opened up stating there is pressure from the higher officials to maintain the allegations against the hospice,” said Sathya Babu, Help Age India.“The High Court has recently said the hospice can run again after proper sanitary, building stability and revenue payment. But, the officials are deliberately delaying the process,”Arul of the National Alliance of People’s Movement alleged.
He told Express that some patients who were shifted to government hospitals were kept in the balcony since the staff could not take care of the dying.The 31-page report of the fact-finding team is to be sent to the Chief Minister requesting him to take necessary action.