Three years after the Disabilities Act was passed in Parliament, a number of establishments in New Kingston, including financial institutions and a church, do not have the necessary infrastructure to accommodate people with disabilities.

In fact, administrators at one of the establishments visited by the Jamaica Observer in the fast-growing commercial district yesterday offered to lift a wheelchair-bound person up three flights of stairs in order to compensate for its shortcomings.

Also, one financial institution in New Kingston told the Observer that a wheelchair-bound person would have to go to another location in order to access its services because of the lack of infrastructure.

However, chief executive officer of the Kingston and St Andrew Municipal Corporation (KSAMC) Robert Hill says inconveniences like these will soon be a thing of the past as the Government plans to develop the country’s capital into a more responsive city, while enforcing building policies to accommodate the disabled.

“We have examined parts of downtown Kingston, Cross Roads, and Half-Way-Tree main thoroughfares [in order to] look at how accommodating the cityscape [is],” Hill told the Observer recently.

“We want to ensure that persons with disabilities are able to move about as able-bodied persons do,” he said.

Speaking specifically about business places such as banks and restaurants, Hill said: “I think it’s the responsibility of the Government to ensure that there are entrances that accommodate wheelchair-bound persons. We have to be a little bit better in how we treat with, not only wheelchair persons, but sight- and hearing-impaired [people] as well.”

In October 2015, a year after the Disabilities Act was passed in Parliament, then Labour and Social Security Minister Derrick Kellier said that the Government would ensure that the provisions contained in the Act were fully implemented in order to provide greater protection for members of the disabled community against all forms of discrimination.

Kellier, in an address to the Jamaica Inclusive Education Conference at Montego Bay Convention Centre in St James, said with the passage of the Act the 400,000-strong disability community could be assured of full participation in all areas of national life.

“The new Disabilities Act 2014 covers the integration and inclusion of persons with disabilities in all areas of national life, including education, employment, health, housing, transportation, and much more. With the Disabilities Act 2014 firmly in place, the progress of members of our native disability community, as citizens of Jamaica, is now fully guaranteed,” he said.

But yesterday, information and training officer at the Jamaica Society for the Blind, Kamika Braithwaite, pointed out that most visually impaired individuals have difficulty moving around because of “untidy” sidewalks.

“In Half-Way-Tree, below Twin Gates plaza, the sidewalk is still choppy, so someone who is walking with a white cane may have difficulty because it gets stuck in different parts of the sidewalk,” Braithwaite said, adding that some sidewalks in the Corporate Area had dangerous gaping holes.

She called on policymakers to legislate that utility posts be placed at specific intervals along walkways so that both visually impaired and wheelchair-bound persons can manoeuvre them with ease.

Braithwaite, who has low vision, also pointed out that establishments need to make adjustments to staircases to accommodate people like her.

“I don’t use a white cane unless I’m crossing the road and want to alert drivers that I am not seeing so well,” she said. “There are supposed to be markers at the edge of the stairs (inside buildings) so that I can know that this is the end of each step. I almost fell down because the first step in a government building did not have this.”

Braithwaite added that staircases should be painted in a colour that stands out, such as yellow, or something that is reflective, in order to help people like her.

She also said it was important that business persons are sensitised that individuals with disabilities are customers too, and needed to be accommodated.

Meanwhile, Hill assured that the KSAMC has been looking at the issues raised by Braithwaite.

While making reference to the 2015 incident in which Marion King, a wheelchair-bound man, was crushed to death by a Jamaica Urban Transit Company bus in the Papine area of St Andrew because of inadequate sidewalk space, Hill said this pushed the KSAMC into looking at widening sidewalks

He also said that the corporation was looking at installing more traffic lights that help blind and hearing-impaired persons. In addition, new building requirements will address “bathrooms, lobby spaces, entrances and emergency exits that can accommodate wheelchair-bound persons to get in and out easily without trampling on their dignity”.

Until the new building code is passed, the KSAMC, he said, is encouraging developers to ensure that buildings are equipped with the requisite amenities.