– Says new administrator
“I grew up with my grandparents and if people say great things about mother’s love, then they have not yet encountered grandmother’s love, because a grandmother’s love supersedes any other love a million times over; and when I look at the elderly persons under my care I envision my grandparents and this motivates me to make optimum efforts for their comfort and care.” The above was the explanation of 26-year-old Palms administrator, Govind Singh, proffered to Guyana Chronicle when he was asked why he opted to leave his former position as Region Five’s Regional Development Officer to assume the onerous task of creating of the then badly-managed and infrastructurally damaged and dysfunctional Palms into a functional institution that fulfills its purpose of providing a clean and comfortable home for the indigent elderly in the society, most of whom have been abandoned by their families.

According to Singh, Human Services Minister Priya Manickchand, who had been impressed by Singh’s hands-on approach to work and the way he interacted with residents in the communities under his watch at his former job, requested Singh to take on the unenviable task of reforming the management system of the Palms and transforming the aesthetics, the environment, and the operational mechanics of the institution.
Because he was very involved in his former job and appeared reluctant to consider changing responsibilities in midstream, Minister Manickchand urged him to scrutinise the value-for-money audit report of the Palms. He did so, mainly to humour her and was appalled at the magnitude of mismanagement, theft, and outright corruption resonating throughout the report. He thereafter visited the institution and his heart constricted at the apathetic hopelessness reflected in the eyes of the residents – and he immediately made his decision to accept Minister Manickchand’s offer.
That was one year ago. Within that relatively short span of time this committed, dedicated young man has totally transformed the Palms into an institution where the inmates are extremely well-cared for, with the ambience of the environment reflective of that impactful transformation.
After an initial assessment to prioritize the needs of the organization, Singh realized that his greatest challenge was to re-energise the morale of the staff into becoming as dedicated and as committed as he was to their charges. He sidelined a recalcitrant clique and introduced to the others training programmes in best practices for taking care of the elderly, while simultaneously working assiduously toward enhancing the infrastructure of the institution and providing a clean, safe, comfortable, and overall-improved environment for both residents and staff members.
Singh created systems to eliminate wastage and pilferage so the foodstuff and other resources, such as bed linen, pampers and medicines, were no longer being smuggled out but were instead benefiting the inmates of the institution, which showed in their improved quality of health.
The nurses, according to Singh, are the best in the country, because the love and care that they expend on their sick and elderly (sometimes fretful and troublesome) patients go beyond professionalism and is based on true vocation. He says he visits his charges and chats with them to enquire of their needs and welfare and the feedback that he receives as to nursing care that they receive is direct, and they all express satisfaction for the treatment they receive, except for some on rigid diet regimen who complain of the bland foods that the resident doctor insists that they eat so as not to compromise their good health.
According to Singh, he does not believe in seniority, nor does he believe in transferring problematic people and the problems that they create to other institutions, so he has sidelined some recalcitrant, inefficient senior members of his staff and has assigned supervisory responsibility to more committed and efficient, albeit younger members of his nursing corps, who get the job done the way he envisages and instructs; because he today has the full support of his complement of 140 staff members, who now go that extra mile in their roles as caregivers to the indigent and elderly patients under their watch.
Singh says that he runs the institution more by concentrating on providing leadership rather than managing the facility; and that all the systems that have been changed to effect more efficient management and nursing systems were decided on through a democratic process that involved every member of staff having an input at general meetings. In this way he minimizes potential areas of conflict and pre-empts problematic synergies from disrupting the smooth flow of operations in the institution.
To commemorate the Month of the Elderly in November, Singh said that a recreational facility was commissioned. According to Singh, this facility will house a huge television screen, comfortable seating for inmates and visitors, a gym, a library, and other features that are yet in blueprint stages. The institution already has a physiotherapy programme for in and outpatients who need the services of a chiropractor.
All care is provided to inmates and a new laundry block, with a huge industrial washing machine, was recently installed at the facility.  To encourage outdoor activity, Singh has introduced kitchen gardens, which he proposes to extend. He also has plans that would twin his charges with children of working mothers to simultaneously provide them with an income and a feeling of self-worth, because he has perceived the loneliness and the feeling of rejection in those elderly residents who feel abandoned and cast-off like worn-out shoes by their families.
The institution is totally funded by the Government, with an annual budget of in excess of $200 million.
Singh reiterated that his charges are a reminder of his grandparents, who taught him a Hindu scriptural adage – of doing things for people without the expectation of reward; because the reward would come from the blessings of God.
Having, like President Jagdeo, grown up in Unity Village, Singh played boyhood cricket with fellow resident Shivnarine Chanderpaul, whose father coached them all. The quality that the President, the star cricketer, and the Palms administrator have in common is an integral, supreme respect for the elderly:  Like in many rural villages, that quality is a home-grown product.
Singh does not only take care of the patients and inmates at the Palms. His staff members are equally well looked after. His concern for their welfare was evident during this interview because a pregnant staff member, who was in obvious discomfort, was sent off by him with a driver to the hospital. He also arranged for another staff member to accompany and take care of her.
The young administrator says that he stops to check in with his grandparents before going home to his wife and children every day, because, although they are in perfect health and are looked over by all the neighbours, he is not satisfied until he eats his grandmother’s cooking before going home to eat the dinner that his wife has prepared.  According to Singh, the special ingredient in the first meal that he has in the evenings is grandmother’s love, which re-invigorates him every day to take daily care of the many replicas of his grandparents under his charge at the Palms.