‘Bring our Tom Costello home’

Published: 21 October, 2010
by TOM FOOT

FAMILY and friends of one of Camden’s most respected and steadfast social activists are demanding he be returned home following his shock transfer to a Northampton mental health hospital against their will.

Tom Costello, who lives in Medburn Street, Somers Town, has supported hundreds of campaigns inclu­ding battles for the homeless, council tenants and against the privatisation of the NHS.

The 72-year-old, who was being cared for at the Grove Centre, ­Hampstead, was drugged and moved 100 miles north to the privately run  St Andrews Hospital on October 7.

Consultants told the family it was the nearest place that could accommodate a patient with his Dementia with Lewy Bodies (DLB) and the decision was based on clinical reasons alone. 

But a spokeswoman for the Lewy Body Society said: “It is horrendous that people go through these moves. The patient should be able to be treated in his own home.” 

Mr Costello’s transfer to Northampton comes just as mental health bosses attempt to close two mental health hospitals and 100 beds after hailing its Care in the Community Programme – a drive to move patients off wards to be treated in their home – a “success”.

New Journal enquiries at the Maudsley Hospital – the south London mental hospital specialising in treating Mr Costello’s common form of dementia – found more inpatient beds were being withdrawn for the same reason.

Relatives of Mr Costello – who has an entrenched “fear of doctors and hospitals” – say he is being put through unnecessary suffering because they are no longer able to make morale-boosting daily visits to see him.

His brother Terry said: “They say he has become violent and had to be moved, but we believe a lot of that is in reaction to the way he is being treated. 

“He has always had a fear of hospitals and doctors and we think this is making his condition worse. 

“He is not violent to us or his neighbours when we visit.”

He added: “What I cannot believe is that there is nowhere in Camden, or even in London, that can take him. They are not doing anything revolutionary [in Northampton]. At no stage have they tried to put him back in his home – not even to see how he reacts.”

He said the round trip took two-and-a-half hours and the visitors book at St Andrew’s had not been signed for one week, adding “we are frightened he is just getting left up there.”

He has written a letter seeking help to Frank Dobson MP, the council’s head of social services Councillor Pat Callaghan and Camden and Islington Foundation (C&IFT) trust chairman Richard Arthur.

Mr Arthur, former leader of Camden Council, has dismissed pleas to personally intervene, adding his consultants’ decisions were always clinically-based.

Mr Costello was a popular figure at the Crowndale centre in Mornington Crescent where he worked. He led the successful campaign to have a health centre at the Crowndale, and when he retired, a huge party was thrown in his honour. 

Friend Liz Ryan said: “Tom has been a lifelong campaigner on numerous local issues and was a constant thorn in the side of the Camden establishment, which now has his life in its hands.”

The cost to Camden NHS of transferring Mr Costello to privately-run St Andrew’s is around £500 a day –  totalling some £3,500 for a week. The cost of providing him with 24-hour carers in his home is £900 per week.

Dementia with Lewy Bodies is one of the most common forms of dementia, caused by microscopic protein deposits in the brain. 

Thought to be rare until the 1980s, Lewy Bodies are found in 15 per cent of dementia cases in older people.

The spokeswoman for the Lewy Body Society said: “Lewy Body is very different to Alzheimer’s – patients often suffer moments of complete clarity.

“I am hearing a lot about what is happening in London and it sounds as if it’s the worst place to be for treatment  – it is a real postcode lottery in terms of treatment.

“It is horrendous that people go through these moves. The patient should be able to be treated in his own home.” 

DLB specialists at King’s College Institute of Psychiatry are based at the Maudsley – a possible alternative for Mr Costello.

A spokesman for the south London NHS trust said: “The reason for the cutbacks is that the demand for acute beds is decreasing.”

On announcing plans to close two Camden mental health hospitals, C&IFT medical director Sylvia Tang said two of Camden’s four mental health hospitals could be closed because of a “sustained bed vacancy”. There are on average between 45-70 empty beds in Camden, she added.

A C&IFT spokesman said: “Whilst we cannot comment on individual cases, we guarantee that all our service users who need an inpatient bed will be provided with one, and we make this as close to their home as we can.”