Still waiting for their voices to be heard

IMAGINE THIS SCENARIO: you are at the mall with your child who exhausts you with his constant movement and his demands are endless. Then your eyes fall upon a mother pushing a wheel chair, carrying a ten-year-old child who looks strange, is making unintelligible noises, and is unable to control his movements. Quickly, you turn to look at your naughty offspring; you feel relief and thank God for the blessing of having a normal child. Tell me, would you wonder if this disabled child receives comprehensive care for his condition? Do you wonder if there are there a lot like him in this country?
What made me question this matter, was the death my colleague’s son. After waiting four years, at 11 years of age Ahmad was enrolled in a comprehensive rehabilitation center for females — supposedly temporarily, because there wasn’t a vacancy at the center for males. Ahmed was suffering from quadriplegia and cerebral palsy. He needed constant specialized care and attention, and his mother was unable to provide a salary for a private caregiver.
Tragically, Ahmed died a month after entering the center. His mother’s acceptance of his death was helped by her strong faith in God’s will. She even spoke well about the female center’s director and staff for the good treatment her son received.
The tragedy really was the fact that his right to treatment began and ended within one month only. His right to treatment is guaranteed by the system for the disabled, which was issued under Decree No. (M/ 73) in 1991, where we find that in the first article, care is defined as “services that provide comprehensive care for all with a disability in need of care by virtue of his health and the degree of disability, or by virtue of his social status.”
In the second article, the text says: “The State will guarantee the right of the disabled for care and rehabilitation’’. So where is the fault here? Why did Ahmed wait four years to get the care he needed?
To further explained this, I will address some statistics of centers that receive and house people with severe and multiple disabilities. However, many sources reported the difficulty of defining or classifying disabilities in the Kingdom. This is due to the reluctance of many from reporting the existence of a disabled member of the family due to ignorance, or embarrassment.
The report for the disabled in the Kingdom was carried out by the Japanese cooperative global agency, Department of Planning and Evaluation in 2003. It showed that there are 21 centers for comprehensive rehabilitation, which serve 2651, three social rehabilitation centers, which serve 578, and seven centers for vocational training, which serve 1035 disabled people. Today the website of the Ministry of Social Affairs shows that from 2003 to 2012, the number has increased to 24 centers only.
In the report we also find that comprehensive rehabilitation centers have a waiting list of up to 3045 disabled, and social rehabilitation centers have a waiting list of up to 1,300.
To check that waiting lists still exist, I contacted the rehabilitation center for females in Jeddah, but the employee responsible refused to give me any information unless I brought back an “official” letter of request. The male center was more cooperative. They informed me that the current numbers on the waiting list are around 400 males and around 200 females but the wait may extend to several years. This is because the disabled remain in centers until they die, unless they had reached the age of 15 and were intelligent enough to benefit from professional rehabilitation for the disabled in Jeddah and Tiaf.
After this approximate statistical review, due to the lack of precise and formal data, I come to the point where I respond as a citizen who feels responsible. I want to lend a helping hand within my means, and that is by sheading light on the problem experienced by many, and the need for it to be resolved.
Perhaps the voices of those suffering disabilities in our dear country will finally be heard.
It is unreasonable to deprive citizens of services provided by them by the government. We must not forget the words of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques: “the rights, welfare and development of the Saudi individual is always of the foremost importance to the State.” Notice he said individual, he did not specify men, women, children, healthy or disabled, the word individual includes everyone. This means the Ministry of Social Affairs has as a priority to establish new centers, eliminate waiting lists and relieve the suffering of the disabled.
Does the private sector represented by the businessmen and owners of factories and companies show responsibility, social and humanitarian, toward their less fortunate compatriots? Why don’t they contribute to the establishment of specialized centers for the care of the disabled? Unfortunately we are still waiting for every one to act.

— Courtesy of Al-Watan Newspaper