AT least two formal complaints alleging mistreatment were filed against the King Edward VII Memorial Hospital within hours of the annual official Christmas visit by the Governor and other dignitaries, the Mid-Ocean News has learned.

These complaints come days in advance of today's final deadline for the Bermuda Hospitals Board to present evidence of fulfilling all of Accreditation Canada's 1,555 standards, nine per cent of which remained unfulfilled at the Canadian health body's last check.

As Sir Richard Gozney and Health Minister Nelson Bascombe were being escorted around KEMH meeting patients and viewing facilities last Thursday, one Bermudian woman's husband was being subjected to what she has described as "Third World" care. On the same day, a local man filed a complaint after his elderly mother was returned to her home by ambulance without his consent and due to an apparent "screw-up".

The woman, who shared her formal complaint with the Mid-Ocean News on the condition of anonymity, wrote to hospital CEO David Hill after being "revolted at the lack of care" for her elderly husband, a diabetic admitted with an infection.

"My husband was placed in a public room on Curtis Ward," she wrote.

"I am appreciative of him being placed in a bed but was shocked at the state of the room and further revolted at the lack of care for my husband and the other patients in this room. The room was freezing cold. I was informed that the air-conditioning unit was broken and the temperature could not be adjusted or turned off.

"Three of the other patients were sitting in chairs in this very cold room with only a thin hospital gown on, bare feet on the cold tile floor and two with Depends unfastened and not containing their urine and faeces. When their food trays arrived, they were placed where they could not reach them and no one was assisted with feeding.

"One ate his food like an animal licking the plate as he did not use the utensils, and another did not eat at all. My husband's tray was placed in another adjoining room! If I had not been there he would not have eaten at all. My complaints went unheard."

The woman's "nightmare was just beginning", according to her letter to Mr. Hill, as KEMH nurses repeatedly failed to administer her husband's potentially life-saving diabetes medication. She had brought in her husband's own medication from home after being told the hospital did not stock the necessary brands to combat his diabetes.

"The nurse informed me the only medication the hospital had from our list was the baby aspirin and I would have to bring into the hospital the other meds," she wrote.

"On the 19th of December his sugar level was 484. In the over 20 years he has had diabetes his sugar has never been this high. It has been controlled through all of his episodes of illness. It has never been in the 400s. This was obviously a result of not having his medication for three nights. He has always been given his medications in other hospitals and has never had to suffer because a hospital does not carry a brand of insulin.

"With the high incidence of diabetes in this country, you would think this hospital would carry this very important medicine for its patients. Will we have to start bringing our own linens and food like Third World countries to KEMH? How can a man come into a hospital to get better from an infection and have his diabetes condition put at extreme risk?"

The woman thanked KEMH quality control officer Lorraine Beasley and the matron and nurses on Gordon Ward, where her husband was later moved, in her letter. She also thanked the hospitalists who cared for her husband, but added that "they cannot function without the proper medications available".

Another Bermudian contacted the Mid-Ocean News this week to share a formal complaint regarding the care of his elderly mother, who was admitted for treatment by two doctors at noon last Monday.

"These two doctors knocked off work at 8.30 p.m.," he explained. "As far as they knew, she was admitted. Whoever the internist was decided they'd send her home! This internist could not reach me by phone apparently, and at 2.30 a.m. I got a call from an elderly lady staying at my mother's house to help me out, saying the ambulance had brought her home.

"I had a meeting with the heads up at the hospital the next morning, and they readmitted her. It was just a screw-up and they admitted that to me. They were very apologetic. They said they were very surprised about what happened. I said, I was suprised to get a phone call at 2.30 a.m. when I was at work! How do you think I felt?"

These complaints come days before KEMH undergoes further scrutiny from health body Accreditation Canada, whose targets the hospital must meet to gain full approval. Last month, a BHB spokesperson told the Mid-Ocean News that the hospital was "currently on target to provide evidence of meeting all required standards to Accreditation Canada by the deadline, Wednesday, 24 December".

Shadow Health Minister Louise Jackson (pictured) expressed her concern at the failure of nurses to administer medication, adding that the hospital is not meeting Accreditation Canada's standards unless patients receive the appropriate medicines.

"I have previously expressed concern about the Accreditation Canada report. Some of the 111 standards that KEMH had yet to meet included those involving medication – how it's being dispensed and other factors. Accreditation Canada has been concerned, but what has been done?"

Mrs. Jackson added that she is "frightened" by the "lack of care and concern by nurses and their aides". She believes next year's new Nurses Pathway Programme at Bermuda College will only exacerbate the problem.

The programme – a joint initiative of the Bermuda Hospitals Board, Government and Bermuda College – will see local students qualified as registered nurses after a reduced course of study. No nurses will be required to have a bachelor's degree or training in a teaching hospital overseas.

"If these nurses can't function professionally or properly after a four-year course – which I will have to assume all the current nurses have – then how will they after only two or three years at a community college?" she asked.