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by Dr. E. S. Thevasagayam In any society there are at least 10% of the population with some form of disability or other. Sri Lanka is no exception. We have the visually impaired (blind) hearing impaired (deaf), Downes' syndrome, polio victims, people without a limb either due to accident or war, slow learners, mentally disabled and of course the older persons. Are we concerned about them or are we satisfied by throwing a coin to one of these begging from the roadside and feel satisfied.

We do not use the word handicapped any more because the word is derived from 'cap in hand', in other words a beggar. A better word than even disabled would be otherwise able.We tend to treat all these people as sub-normal. There was a time when left handed people were considered freaks and everything was geared to right handedness. We have outgrown this. More than half of our national cricketers are left handed. We have to outgrow our attitude to disability also.

If a German speaks to us in German which we do not understand, we think nothing of it. When a deaf person speaks to us in his own language (the sign language) we think that he is not normal. We have blind who are doing well in many walks of life. Recently a blind graduate was recruited to the Sri Lanka Administrative Service through the usual examination.

Mr. David Blunket, a senior minister in the Labour Government in the UK is totally blind. There is an Education Ministry directive that every school should recruit a blind teacher, which is a very progressive step. I believe that every opportunity should be given to those with disability in the workforce.

How many persons with all faculties perform to their full capacity, most of them performing only at about 50% level. Why not give the chance to one with disability who can only perform 50% . In the outfit I work with. We have a blind person whose performance is much better than his fully sighted colleagues.

Because of physical disability, there are people in wheel chairs. We provide no facility in this country for them to move around. Hardly any building has a ramp for wheel chairs. In the more developed countries such people are able to drive their own cars, go to work in offices, shop at supermarkets without any outside assistance.

Shopping malls and supermarkets provide power driven shopping carts for their convenience which even older persons could use. The law in these countries insist that ramps are provided and hand rails for all stairs to help older persons.

When countries started to provide ramps about forty years back, invariably they were at the back. Now the law requires that the ramp is at the front entrance so that people with disability could enter the building from the front like everyone else.

Taking the case of older persons, it is sad to see very few buildings, even new ones providing hand rails to assist older persons to climb stairs. I recently went to a newly built building with the best decor, granite floor and all with about fifteen steps to reach the ground floor and no hand rails. The signal I got was 'if you are above seventy five keep away as you are likely to fall and break your hip coming in'.

This is all the consideration we give to people with disability. A few years back I stayed at the Kitulgala Rest House. To approach the rooms, one had to go down a flight of about 20 steps, so dangerous to negotiate for older persons. I wrote to the Tourist Board about it and two years later when I went, hand rails were in place. I wrote a similar letter to an institution suggesting hand rails for the six steps leading to the ground floor.

The response I got was that hand rails will not go with the architecture. A few years later an older person had a fall there, and now hand rails are in place. How many more need to fall before handrails become a standard fixture for all stairs, even it be just two or three steps.

Let us take the TV. This too is geared to people with good vision and one who could read. I would think that about 25% of older persons are with low vision which may account for about 250,000 in Sri Lanka. There is another 10-15% of the whole population who cannot read.

That makes a total of about 1 million. Take a look at the telecasts and see how much one can miss with such disability. One TV channel is now broadcasting, 'Election winners views'. Pictures are shown and names given below. If you are unable to read, you do not know who is speaking.

The same station spells out sponsor's name, address and telephone number. Rainfall figures are read out but no exchange rates. Taking cricket commentaries, in the one day internationals, the number of overs is so important. Scores are given at the end of each over but not the number of overs, not often enough and you have to read it on the screen.

The scores are also given on the screen but read too. So why not the Overs. To compare, in the UK, BBC news broadcast, there is a second person on the corner of the screen giving the news in sign language.

So everything in this country is geared to people with full healthy faculties. Others are completely ignored as though they even do not exist. Many of our decision makers and builders, no doubt have visited developed countries and observed things I have mentioned. Why not implement them here too.

My plea therefore is that we take positive steps to address the special needs of people with disability and to see that they are accepted as full members of society and that they can lead an independent life with dignity and self respect. Those of you who are still young, with luck, you too will get old, and you will understand what I am talking about.

Why not attend to it now so that you will not face the same problems when your time comes.

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