WEEKEND VIEW: Parents Of The Disabled Need More Recognition For Their Role

TWO TERRIFIC events took place last week. They possess marvellous ramifications for the rights of people with disabilities in our society.  

The first transpired at a community hall in section three in the south of Petaling Jaya.

A group of people numbering nearly a hundred – mostly parents and caregivers of the handicapped – attended a half-day forum on Saturday on how to be more effective in their roles.

The occasion was part of a community based rehabilitation exercise that was organised by state assemblywoman Puan Haniza Talha of Taman Medan in Petaling Jaya.

There are several points that made this workshop truly special.            

First, it was targeted at parents and caregivers of disabled persons. These are frequently the people who are the very backbone of each disabled individual; and yet, they largely and sadly remain “invisible” in the eyes of the public, the media and the government.

Not enough attention is given to the many hardships they have to endure in raising a handicapped child. Quite a few have to cope with two or even three disabled members in the family.

Before the event began, I went around the hall and spoke to some of the parents.

I was shocked to discover how little support or information they had about how to bring up their disabled kids even though they had access to specialists and lived in a vibrant city such as Petaling Jaya.   

      

Clearly those involved in rehabilitation medicine need to drastically change their present methods of treatment in hospitals and find an effective way to bring their care directly into the homes of their patients like what is being done in outreach programmes in many overseas countries.

I was delighted when YB Haniza told me that she was going to set up a support group for the poor parents in her community so that they can come together regularly and share resources with each other.

The speakers at the forum were also brilliant. They were made up of local disabled role models with various handicaps.  

A tetraplegic speaker shared his experiences of how he overcame feelings of depression and suicide when he suddenly became handicapped through a road accident.

He spoke about how his mother eventually changed her negative perceptions of his paralysis to finally accept his abilities in a wheelchair after she saw her son helping other people in a similar condition.

She passed away eight years ago.

Another highlight was a presentation by a rehabilitation doctor who showed picture slides of some of the handicapped aids like special wheelchairs and shower equipment available in Malaysia.

Many of the participants were seeing such things for the first time. They told me later that they were greatly encouraged by the forum and by disabled role models and a parent who spoke about their experiences.         

    

Meanwhile, disabled Malaysians worried about their personal safety will be smiling soon.

This was revealed at a special meeting with the police force that was arranged by national welfare department (JKM) on Wednesday last week.

About 30 persons – ten of them some top brass from the police training force and the rest disability representatives from the blind, Deaf, learning disabilities, little people and the physically handicapped – met at the Jalan Travers police station in Kuala Lumpur.   

The meeting was a follow-up session to an inaugural one held in October of last year.

I wasn’t able to be there for the event but several physically disabled activists who did told me afterwards that the meeting was one of the most promising one so far.

The police force got to once again hear about the special problems faced by the disabled community in matters related to crime and protection.

These included the blind’s difficulty in being able to identify a true law enforcement officer from a crook pretending to be one and running off with their valuables afterwards.

One disabled woman told how she was robbed in broad daylight at their disabled centre by machete-wielding assailants. When she called the police in a state of shock, she was told to “come over to the station to make a report” rather than the police coming to the traumatised victim.  

In a much more recent incident, a middle-aged man in a wheelchair was kicked by an assailant in public. But charges have yet to be filed on him even up to this week.

The issue of wheelchair-friendly accessibility was also seriously raised at the meeting.      

Those who came in wheelchairs found the ramps in the relatively newly-built police station too steep. They couldn’t wheel up on them without assistance. And if they did, their wheelchairs risked dangerously tipping over from the back.

The ramp was also partially blocked by a permanent police signboard stand fixture and a flower pot.

The lifts had no Braille buttons and voice announcements of the floors it stops on.

The handicapped friendly toilet had hardly any room to manoeuvre. The grab bars were all fitted wrongly and the door was a normal one – not a sliding one that is always used for wheelchairs.

As for the carparks, they were way too far from the entrance. Disabled visitors are forced to negotiate with ongoing vehicles to get to the building which is located across the disabled parking.   

The police promised to look into the matter straightaway.

The End

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