Quadriplegic Luke Caines’ dream of leaving a hospital ward for geriatric patients after 40 years has moved a step closer thanks to the generosity of the community.

For Summerhaven — the purpose-built home for people in wheelchairs — has received $20,000 in donations since making an appeal for funds last week, enabling the charity to update living quarters for Mr Caines ahead of his move.

Last Wednesday The Royal Gazette revealed that hospital bosses had finally authorised Mr Caines, 53, to move out of the condemned Continuing Care Unit of the King Edward VII Memorial Hospital, where he has lived among elderly patients since the age of 14.

But the move could not go ahead because Summerhaven needed cash to install a $6,000 shower unit for Mr Caines — cash that the charity did not have.

However, since last Wednesday’s story, the home, which provides specialist care for residents, allowing them to live with dignity and a degree of independence, has received a number of financial offers to help Mr Caines.

And yesterday Summerhaven chairman John Powell confirmed that the organisation had been pledged $20,000 so far — and is expecting further cash donations. Mr Caines will be able to finally move once the facilities have been built and arrangements for the long term funding of his care have been approved by Financial Assistance.

The Bermuda Hospitals Board’s decision to release Mr Caines after four decades in conditions one friend and frequent visitor described as “worse than Westgate” remains controversial.

Initially, hospital bosses said they began the process of relocating Mr Caines, who was born with cerebral palsy, after he submitted a “formal” request to move last year, which coincided with a place becoming available at Summerhaven.

But the BHB was forced to backtrack on that claim after it was pointed out that Mr Caines had expressed his desire to move at least four years ago in a Bermuda Sun article.

And Mr Powell said that he contacted the BHB in 2010 offering Mr Caines a place at the care home — but claimed he was rebuffed by health officials who said that, after spending so much of his life on a hospital ward, Mr Caines had become “institutionalised”.

A BHB spokesman later admitted that the board had turned down Mr Powell’s offer because “up until recent times Summerhaven did not provide the level of nursing and care services required for certain residents of CCU”.

Health chiefs also denied that they only agreed to move Mr Caines after Government last year announced that it intended to shut down the CCU within two years and slashed the unit’s budget. That announcement came at about the same time that, according to BHB, Mr Caines’ put in his “formal” request to be moved.

The BHB did not say whether it had made a profit from caring for Mr Caines prior to the budget cut — it was receiving $13,000 per month for each CCU patient before Government dropped the subsidy last year — more than double the estimated cost of Mr Caines’ care at Summerhaven.

The BHB also failed to confirm or deny if hospital staff had told Mr Powell that Mr Caines had become “institutionalised” under its care, saying only that “there is no official classification for someone as institutionalised”.