Can you imagine having to choose between adult diapers or food for Christmas, choosing between nursing care and ensuring your electricity bill is paid because the National Insurance Board has stopped your payments? Can you imagine being denied assistance by the Ministry of the People and Social Development because your paperwork wasn’t filled out correctly? For Kerensa Joshua, of Diego Martin, this isn’t a nightmare, it’s a reality.
Joshua, 40, lost the use of her lower extremities seven years ago, after she was involved in a hit-and-run accident on the Uriah Butler Highway, near the Caroni Bird Sanctuary. The former human resources manager was returning home from a party in San Fernando with her friend Narissa Ali, 36, of San Juan, when they were hit by a vehicle that sped off. Joshua’s positive and bubbly personality belies the tragedy she has suffered and the hardships she faces daily.
Last week, the T&T Guardian visited Joshua’s home along with several members of the non-governmental organisation Women in Action for the Needy and Destitute (Wand), who have been assisting her with medical and living expenses.
Joshua, who returned to T&T in 2005 after obtaining her bachelor’s and masters degrees in business management at the University of Miami, began living the life of a normal middle-aged woman. She worked hard at her job as human resources manager at Ventrin Petroleum, Point Lisas, but also enjoyed the odd party and competing in sporting events. Joshua doesn’t remember the accident and has had to rely on Ali’s version of the event.
“I was driving my car with my friend Narissa, that’s the last thing that I remembered. Narissa remembers waking up at the side of the highway near the Caroni Bird Sanctuary exit. Passers-by apparently saw the accident and pulled her out of the wreckage and took her to the side of the road.” Presumed dead because of her head injuries, Joshua was left in the wreckage until medical personnel arrived on the scene.
Ali was taken to the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex (EWMSC), Mt Hope and upon regaining consciousness, was told no one else had been brought in with her. She implored hospital officials to locate Joshua’s body. When she heard her friend was alive and had been located at the Chaguanas Health Centre, Ali breathed a sigh of relief.
Seven months in hospital
Joshua, who was in a coma, was transferred to the EWMSC where she was taken in to surgery to close a gaping wound to her head. She regained consciousness three days later and was only aware of the extent of her injuries during a conversation with a specialist doctor. Her injuries included the top of her head being sliced open, a broken collarbone, two broken bones in the neck, a broken spine and fractured ribs.
Resident at the EWMSC for seven months, Joshua spent the first three immobilized in a chest brace as doctors sought to stabilize broken neck bones. Following two more surgeries, she was allowed to go home after swelling around her spine had gone down. Doctors were hopeful that once the swelling disappeared, she would regain feelings in her lower limbs. However, this was not to be and Joshua was eventually told that she would never walk again.
Joshua suffered a spinal cord injury, or SCI as it commonly called—a fracture at the T4 or chest level of the spine, which means she can no longer feel or move from the chest down. Diagnosed as suffering from permanent paraplegia, she is unable to bathe or clean herself, control her bowel movements, or perform simple household tasks.
Joshua’s brother has been taking care of her since her parents passed away and a nurse was hired to provide her with home-care. She needs at least five to six diaper changes daily, as well as a host of other medical supplies and home aids. Joshua is appealing for help from the social services. After the accident, Joshua received a $200,000 cheque from her Accidental Death and Disability insurance policy, but that money quickly ran out and she had to let the $600-a-week nurse go.
NIB payments stopped
When she first got out of the hospital, Joshua applied to the National Insurance Board for an invalidity benefit. She began receiving $1,078 monthly, which later increased to $1,372 in 2013. However, because of this income, the Ministry of the People and Social Development denied Joshua a disability assistance grant,.
In June 2013, her NIB assistance was abruptly stopped and Joshua was told her paperwork needed to be resubmitted because a clerk had written on the file that her “condition would be resolved by June 2013.” Asked to speculate on what that meant, Joshua said: “I don’t know, but I am still here and I am still in my wheelchair.”
“It is difficult to move around and I have no one I can depend on to do it for me. I called the Rotary bus to take to me to the health centre to get it done but when I got there at 8 am when they opened, there were already 45 people ahead of me and no one is willing to make any concessions for someone in a wheelchair."
Revealing that she has all but given up on getting the NIB payments reinstated, Joshua said in February she once again contacted the Ministry of the People as she was no longer a recipient of any other government assistance. She was told she needed to submit the relevant paperwork and although a field officer later visited her at home, she was later told she still wasn’t entitled to the disability grant and advised “to work out my problems with NIB.”
Joshua said it was now a matter of life and death as she is dependent on the goodwill of her brother, good Samaritans, former classmates, friends, neighbours and groups like Wand. She said she is “ready and willing to work.” “I just need someone to stop letting the chair be an obstacle to the contribution I can make to their workforce.”
Joshua said many employers stipulate that she must come to the office. However, she faces challenges with transport and the need for diaper changes every four to five hours. An NIB official told the T&T Guardian that their hands are tied in Joshua’s case and several factors had to be considered once Joshua satisfied the requirements.
Unwilling to say more, the official later directed questions to the Ministry of Finance, under whose purview the NIB falls. Stressing that she was not looking for handouts, Joshua said there are people worse off her but she wants the chance to live like a “normal” person and for greater awareness for the disabled community who live and suffer in silence.