Madam, – I refer to “Thalidomide group tells of constant battle for support” (Home News, February 24th). While undoubtedly many of your readers were shocked by the lack of willingness on the part of the HSE to ensure a person with a disability could not have locks on the door to their home changed to enable them maintain their independence, those people will also have been disgusted at the length of time a person with a disability had to wait for a tyre for their wheelchair due to unnecessary bureaucracy on the part of the HSE.
The waiting time for appliances or parts to ensure the mobility of people with disabilities is wholly unacceptable and must be addressed immediately.
While the manufacturers/ suppliers of appliances will lay the blame for delays on delivery of such essential items at the door of occupational therapists and others, they in turn will blame the suppliers. Meanwhile, a person with a disability is caught in the middle of this “blame game”.
Without feeling sorry for myself, I can vouch for the fact that in the life of a disabled person, everything has to be fought for and in the process one’s disability is compounded. While the HSE is prepared to talk about the inclusion of people with disabilities into mainstream society, one could be forgiven for believing this is mere verbiage.
As a former member of the Commission on the Status of People with Disabilities, chaired by Mr Justice Feargus Flood, I am repeatedly shocked to note the number of people working in frontline services to people with disabilities who not only have not read the report, but are not even aware of its existence. The report was described to me by the authors of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) as “the best report on disability in the world”. The Government and the HSE obviously don’t see the report in that light – it is not available on either website though it is available on my own personal site.
There is no doubt that Thalidomide survivors are entitled to an apology from the government who licensed a drug for use to treat morning sickness when other countries would not do so. It is also imperative that these survivors, like all people with disabilities, be entitled to everything that will ensure a quality of life on a par with every other citizen of this State.
Those of us with disabilities provide good and steady employment to many thousands of people in Ireland and to perhaps millions around the world.
It’s time for a clear focus to be placed on the essential needs of all people with disabilities who for far too long have been relegated to the margins of society and researched to the point of exhaustion.
We know what we need, be it a tyre, a change of lock on a door or modifications to our homes, so that we can remain in the community rather than be forced to live in institutional care which would cost the taxpayer a fortune and diminish the quality of life of people with disabilities.
As a survivor of abuse who received an apology from the then taoiseach, Bertie Ahern TD, I would now call on the present Taoiseach to extend an apology to the many people who have been disabled by the drug Thalidomide. – Yours, etc,