Health chiefs facing growing campaign to bring Tom Costello home
People’s champion with dementia sent miles away to Northampton
Published: 28 October, 2010
by TOM FOOT
CARE and human rights experts have called for the “urgent” return of people’s champion Tom Costello from a mental hospital in Northampton.
Age Concern have lodged a formal complaint with Camden and Islington Foundation Trust criticising their “unimaginative response” to Mr Costello’s dementia.
The 72-year-old – who took part in hundreds of campaigns and lived in Somers Town all his life – was moved from the Grove Centre in Hampstead to privately run St Andrew’s Hospital on October 7. His family were given 48 hours’ notice of the decision.
Camden Age Concern manager Jo Holloway said: “We believe the institutionalisation he has experienced has sadly made him much worse. We have been disappointed to date by what we feel is the Trust’s defensive and unimaginative response and we are now supporting Tom and his family with a formal complaint against the Trust. We feel that this decision should be urgently reconsidered.”
Ms Holloway said Age Concern’s specialist dementia services would help take care of Mr Costello at his home if he was discharged.
Her calls follow criticism from the Lewy Body Society (LBS) – a campaign group raising awareness over Mr Costello’s form of dementia – which raised concerns that the family had not been assessed for free home care funding.
Camden and Islington Foundation Trust claim to champion a “care in the community” approach to mental health care that treats patients at home rather than in old Victorian asylums.
They decided to transfer Mr Costello to the £500-a-day St Andrew’s after claiming there was nowhere in London that could treat him.
In a similar case, Christine Gale, 29, who lived in Gaisford Street, Kentish Town, before suffering a brain injury, was moved to St Andrew’s a year ago.
Her father Chris, who is lives in Leverton Street, said: “They told me it was the only place that could cope with what she had. People say if you love someone it doesn’t matter how far you have to go. But I can’t travel up there every day like I used to when she was in London. I’m her dad – she’s my little baby. I want her to be nearer so I can go and see her.”
C&I chairman Richard Arthur: “It is rare, but sometimes necessary, to send patients to specialist centres for periods of time, if the clinical need requires this. There can be a difficult trade-off between ease of contact for the family and the best clinical care.
“I understand that this can be very distressing for the family of someone in this situation, and I have only sympathy for their predicament.”
Meanwhile, a consultation on proposals to close two mental health hospitals and at least 100 beds in Camden has been “postponed”.
Sources said the Trust was rewriting its plans to avoid closing St Mary’s House – a specialist dementia hospital – following complaints from directors.