We can only admire the spirited resolve and ambition of 12-year-old Miss Ramona-Shae Thorpe who uses a walker and/or wheelchair because of a disabling ailment called osteogenesis imperfecta.

It’s a condition that causes her bones to fracture easily. Our Sunday lead story, written by Miss Tamoy Ashman, tells us that Ramona-Shae has already experienced multiple fractures. That’s including her legs, broken 15 times, and both of her femurs — said to be the strongest bone in the body — 15 times.

Yet, despite her circumstances, our 12 year-old is aiming to become a doctor equipped to help others with her disability which we hear affects approximately one in 10,000 to 20,000 people worldwide.

Ramona-Shae wants to see the day when those with her condition will have “…opportunities that I didn’t have and have better access to health care”.

Given her condition, it seems reasonable to expect that State agencies and all others with the capacity to help would be doing so.

That’s not the case, according to her mother, Ms Sasha-Gaye Wood.

She and the child’s father have enrolled her in a private school they can hardly afford because State-funded primary schools — fearful she may get hurt in less than ideal physical facilities — declined to accept her.

Hamstrung by their economic circumstances, the child’s parents applied for help from the State’s welfare agency Programme of Advancement Through Health and Education (PATH) only to be denied because Ramona-Shae was attending a private school.

The clichéd view obviously being that if she is attending an expensive school she doesn’t need State help.

Apparently, inadequate attention to detail, poor communication and perhaps ‘don’t care’ attitudes — all unfortunate characteristics of the human condition — have been at play.

For while Ms Wood says she has made multiple appeals to PATH for help and has also reported the child’s medical condition, word from the Ministry of Labour and Social Security — which embraces the welfare agency — is that there is only one report on record with no reference to Ramona-Shae’s ailment.

A consequence of all of the above is that at one stage the child missed an entire year of school.

We are told that the matter is now being investigated and we expect our story will help.

Presumably, the bureaucratic tangles which often haunt the State sector will now be made smooth to ensure expeditious support from PATH; and that other agencies, not least the Ministry of Education and the Jamaica Council for Persons with Disabilities, will come on board.

However, we are left to lament that it has taken way too long for Ramona-Shae to get even close to receiving the help she so obviously needs.

And we are well aware that there are many other stories out there closely resembling this one, and even worse.

How can we, as a country, organise systems and approaches — sidelining uncaring paper-pushers in the process — so that those most in need, such as Ramona-Shae, get the requisite help expeditiously?

As our political parties push for the power and the glory in parliamentary elections due in less than a year, this is among the issues that media, civil society, and all responsible Jamaicans should be placing firmly on the table.