The report of the shabby treatment being meted out to residents of the Vineyard Town Golden Age Home in St Andrew is symptomatic of a systemic breakdown in the delivery of good services to these institutions throughout the island. This state of affairs did not happen overnight. What we are now witnessing is an accumulation of neglect over the years which has placed a tremendous burden on the system leading almost to its full demise. No one government is to be blamed for this neglect. There is a wringing of hands and expression of outrage whenever the media highlight incidents like that at Vineyard Town and the facility in St Thomas which pitched the present minister in charge of Local Government, Mr Montague, in the middle of an unnecessary brouhaha with the administration of the home.

It is clear that the intractable problems in these homes have reached a critical stage and no amount of hand-wringing or intermittent outrage can suffice to bring the remedies that are urgently needed. The government needs to move with greater dispatch to pass the national disability bill that will promote a policy of care, concern and sanction where our disabled community is concerned. The present bill is still in the draft stage languishing in the parliamentary counsel’s office for close to 10 years. This is not good enough. We cannot accept the explanation given by the junior minister in the ministry of social security that the delay has been occasioned by a desire to facilitate further consultations and discussions from a wide cross-section of the society. How much longer is this collaborative effort to take? Another five years? Or 10?

The disgraceful treatment that is often meted out to our golden agers, and by extension young wards of the state in government-run homes, goes to a deeper philosophy of contempt and disrespect for human life; an absence of a recognition of the intrinsic worth of the human being. I am not suggesting that the residents of these institutions are not loved by those who care for them. The caregivers themselves often have to work in appalling conditions with very low compensation for what they are called upon to do. Perhaps with the best will in the world they grow to be complacent in an environment that does not lend itself to upward mobility and where work becomes a chore with no prospect of a better life to be had anywhere in the future. But whatever the environment may be, it should never at anytime cause one person who has the ability to trample on another because of his or her disability.

One of the best measures of a compassionate society is how it treats its young and elderly. In Jamaica we often fail the test of compassion because we measure people according to their utility value and discard them whenever their utility value has expired. If they are not physically and mentally fit they are no longer in a position to contribute to the good of society, so we cart them off to some godforsaken place to be abused, disrespected and burnt to death as happened at the Eventide Home in the 1970s. Even the word “disabled” tells the story of how we regard the physically and mentally challenged among us. For many, to be disabled means to be crippled and as such worthy of pity. For the general society it means that you cannot exist on your own and so you become an object of pity as the government will now have to take care of you. Even though there is this wide perception of the disabled as a cripple, those who are able continue to place all kinds of obstacles in their way. We design and construct residencies and offices without any concern for those who cannot climb stairs and who rely on wheelchairs to get around. Access to public areas and to areas of entertainment is closed to the disabled for their concerns never seem to figure in the minds of the promoters. For many, once you are disabled, life for you has ceased to exist.

But nothing could be further from the truth. In my work as a therapist and a priest, I have come across many inspirational stories of people who have refused to be defined by their so-called disability. They have not bought into the fact that they are physically challenged. Many hardly express any behaviour that suggests that they need anyone’s pity. This is why I have a great admiration for Floyd Morris, the former PNP senator and junior minister, and others like him who have rejected society’s caricature of them. I remember going to a hardware store to buy cement. The gentleman who came to put the bags in my pick-up was sitting in a wheelchair. “Crippled” by the societal expectation that he must be helped, I moved forward to assist him. He shrugged me off and with great alacrity loaded all six bags and refused to take my pathetic tip. I was taught a lesson that day.

The physically and mentally challenged (as I prefer to call them) do not need society’s pity. They need to be treated fairly and they want an environment to be created where they can live their lives with minimum humbug from the “abled”. An important reality that I have had to confront in my daily rounds is the all too familiar awareness that it does not really take too much for a person to move from a life full of vigour and physical strength to one of disability that places him in dependence on others. A stroke or an accident can do this to anyone. If none of these incidents happen to us, there is the inevitable ageing process that will render certain this dependency on the state or our loved ones. The Jamaican adage that says, “Today for me, tomorrow for you” rings true here. It would behove us all to get a dose of humility and as a society become more responsive to the challenged among us. They are not asking for much but they expect to be respected as persons and to be given a fair chance to live their lives with the dignity they deserve.

Rev. Raulston Nembhard is a marriage and family therapist intern.

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