Fisher wants accessibility to public buildings by country's disabled addressed

BY ALICIA DUNKLEY Sunday Observer senior reporter dunkleya@jamaicaobserver.com

Saturday, December 24, 2011

DIRECTOR of Elections Orette Fisher says that the issue of accessibility of public buildings to members of the disabled community must be urgently addressed.

The director made the observation Thursday during a visit to the Mobile Reserve's Harman Barracks headquarters off Camp Road in the Corporate Area, one of several polling stations that he toured.

"It is more than just an issue surrounding today, it's a national thing that we need to look at because we (Electoral Office of Jamaica) use places like this and all the stations for only one day in every five or so years," Fisher said, said noting that "schools and other public buildings should be constructed to accommodate the disabled".

"The office that we (Electoral Office of Jamaica) are housed in, we converted it to ensure that it is accessible. I am saying that the electoral office uses a building for one day but the fact that they are public buildings means that generally they should all be accessible," he pointed out.

Furthermore he said "the Building Code in Jamaica should probably be amended to ensure that these things are taken into consideration".

But he said his office had no real power in this respect but would be doing the best it could to help effect change.

"While it is a concern of mine, it is not something that I can address because certainly I would not be getting a budget to construct ramps all over the country and then the logistics of constructing the ramps would be another issue," Fisher said.

"But I have observed it, I even had a meeting with the Combined Disabilities Association and we have discussed possibilities going forward but it would be far more than just the Electoral Office because this is just one situation that would highlight the difficulty that the disabled community experience on a daily basis," he continued.

"We are going to see what it is that we can do but in terms of constructing ramps for buildings that we use once every several years I don't think that is going to happen.

It is a major concern, we will be looking at what we can do but as a nation it is something we need to focus on," Fisher said.

Some 35,705 inviduals including police and military personnel and election day were down to cast their votes Thursday ahead of the December 29th general election poll.

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Fisher wants accessibility to public buildings by country's disabled addressed