A patient who was evicted from a hospital under a court order after spending more than two years in a bed has insisted that he did not want to stay there.
Adriano Guedes was removed from the James Paget hospital in Gorleston, Norfolk, which said the 63-year-old was occupying the bed “unnecessarily” and was fit to be discharged.
Guedes, who came to the UK from Portugal 15 years ago seeking work and suffers paralysis following a stroke in 2008, said he “didn’t want to stay” but “they forced me to stay”.
He told the BBC: “It’s very bad to occupy a place which should be used by someone in need, but I didn’t cause the situation; on the contrary, I tried to get out of there.”
The hospital obtained a possession order from the court to remove Guedes and it was granted on 1 December and enforced on 10 January.
Guedes said he had asked to be moved from the hospital to a “wheelchair-friendly place” and said he had been on hunger strike since his removal, with his last meal on 10 January.
He said he was initially admitted to hospital in 2014 on mental health grounds and not because of his physical condition.
His request to see a spinal specialist in London for his injuries was ignored, he said, adding: “I wanted to leave, but they always offered what they knew I would refuse.”
Guedes, whose hospital stay is estimated to have cost around £340,000, is now living in a council flat in Suffolk.
The Department of Health says the average daily cost of a hospital bed is about £400.
Director of governance at the hospital, Anna Hills, said Guedes had “repeatedly refused all offers of appropriate accommodation organised by our local authority and social care partners, despite being fit for discharge”.
The hospital said it had worked “in partnership with a range of agencies to achieve a safe discharge from the hospital” for Guedes.
It said “detailed planning” had taken place which “led to a successful discharge in this complex case”.
Guedes has been described as a so-called “bed blocker”, but the NHS Confederation’s director of police, Johnny Marshall, told the Guardian last year that the term was an inappropriate description of people staying in hospital when they did not need to be there.
He said: “These ‘blockers’ are often older people who are frail and vulnerable and who would like nothing more than to return home to their families. The phrase ‘bed blocker’ puts all the emphasis, and blame, on the individual.
“The reality is that it is the system that has failed to move quickly enough to put together the right package of care to enable the person in the bed to return home.”
Patient who spent two years in hospital evicted under court order
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