January, 1991 following a routine tonsillectomy, yesterday shot down the Patients Care Committee formed last year. He claimed it was of no real assistance to patients because it answered to the Hospitals Board.

Mr. Eddie Fisher called for the formation of a patients' association that would be completely separate from King Edward VII Memorial Hospital.

At a press conference in their lawyer's office last week, Mr. Fisher and his wife Jennifer said a patients' Bill of Rights and association were available in many hospitals overseas and "desperately needed'' here.

And yesterday Mr. Fisher also questioned executive director of the Board, Mr.

Hume Martin's comments to The Royal Gazette this week that the drawing up of a Bill of Rights and Responsibilities was considered "long before'' Justin's death.

"It seems strange that on the one hand he (Mr. Martin) says such a Bill had been discussed for some time, but on the other hand it won't be ready for another couple of months,'' Mr. Fisher noted.

"Surely it does not take that long to draft it. It's just a matter of getting copies of other hospitals' Bills of Rights and adding and changing some things.'' However, Mr. Fisher admitted Mr. Martin's announcement that patients could be offered the protection of such a Bill by as soon as July was "very encouraging.'' He added: "It must be noted that it is in the region of 10 years since the efforts of Mr. Eugene Carmichael, whose wife (Violetta) died at King Edward, helped bring about a recommendation by a Royal Commission (into the KEMH Emergency Department) that the hospital have a Bill of Rights drawn up.

"Unfortunately this important document was allowed to fall by the wayside.'' Mr. Fisher said a patients' Bill of Rights typically covered: The right to total privacy about one's reason for being in hospital, the right to copies of one's medical records -- "hopefully complete'' -- the right to know the extent of the training of any person involved with the treatment, and the right to be told what alternative operations or treatment are available, even if they aren't available in Bermuda.

A Bill of Rights ought to be for the Hospital's benefit as well, Mr. Fisher conceded.

"To assist doctors, nurses and management provide optimum care, certain clauses would outline patients' responsibility to the hospital -- we aren't looking for a one-sided thing.'' Mr. Fisher said a Bill of Rights would have alerted him and his wife to the right to employ private nursing care for Justin, a right he said was in existence, but one which hospital staff did not inform them of.

He said he believed a private nurse "probably would have saved Justin's life.'' "A private nurse certainly would not have interfered in Justin's case -- Justin's nurse was five months pregnant and looking after some four to five patients,'' Mr. Fisher pointed out.

He further said if Justin had had the protection of a Bill of Rights, he and his wife would have had less difficulty obtaining the medical records concerning Justin following his death.

"The hospital only allowed me to have the records after I hired a lawyer,'' he claimed, adding he had had several meetings with hospital management in an effort to find out "why our son died.'' Justin was revived and put on life support, but taken off a week later after he was declared brain dead. A Coroner's jury hearing the inquest into his death ruled last month it had been "aggravated by a lack of professional care.'' Mr. Fisher said the effectiveness of a Bill of Rights depended on what was in it.

"If it doesn't have teeth, what use is it?'' he asked. "There must be accountability.'' Mr. Martin told The Royal Gazette on Monday he could not yet say what rights would be included in the new Bill. But he said "broader issues'' such as patients' consent, confidentiality rights and the right to know who was treating patients would be included.

He said drafting such a Bill was "an idea whose time had come'' and which had been discussed all last year with the first draft completed in January this year.