Despite the large public attention and sympathy paraplegic Robby Ramcharitar has been receiving after Saturday’s alleged police beating, he said he remains broke and homeless.
On the last day of the year, he wheeled his chair around the San Fernando General Hospital’s car park, meeting people and shaking their hands like he was a celebrity. After living on the streets for the past five years, he hopes 2015 will bring happy changes to his life: A house, a caretaker and disability grants. He said he cannot stay at Court Shamrock’s Centre for Socially Displaced Persons because it is not suitable for disabled people.
He said he also wants the Government or the Police Service to compensate him for the alleged beating that was given to him by two Special Reserve Police officers attached to the Rapid Response Unit at the Mon Repos Police Station. Both officers are expected to be interviewed by the Professional Standards Bureau on tomorrow.
“I need a house and somebody with a vehicle to take care of me, and that person will inherit everything I have. No brother, uncle or aunt will get what I have. The person who takes care of me will get everything,” Ramcharitar said. He said he could not apply for disability grants because his identification card and birth paper were lost, but a social worker at the hospital was helping him to get his life in order. However, he said the social worker was on vacation until February.
“I am not living, I am surviving. I don’t get disability grants from the government and I don’t have a house to stay in. I’ve been homeless for the past five years and living at the hospital for the past six months. I have to move around with a urine bag because I cannot get up and I have to do everything myself.” He said there is corrective surgery for his spinal disease, but he opted against it after doctors told him that their was a 50 per cent chance that it could leave him totally paralysed.
Relaxing with hospital staff, he said he was waiting on an attorney to begin discussing legal action against the police officers. He said the attorney contacted the head nurse at his ward yesterday to arrange a meeting. He said: “Right now my brain is not functioning too right. I don’t like this big scene. He (police man) did not have to hit me, they could have just tell me to go away. I don’t like the big scene it caused.”
Ministry to help
Manager of the People’s Unit in the Ministry of the People and Social Development, Asauph Ghany said he will try to meet with Ramcharitar next week to assess his circumstances. Ghany said he was surprised that someone in a wheel chair was not receiving any of the ministry’s grant, especially Ramcharitar who would qualify for monthly disability checks.
Ghany said, “If he is not receiving any of the ministry grants, I would be a bit surprised because this is a guy in a wheelchair. Some of these folks, unfortunately, don’t have anyone to help them and as a result they don’t reach to the offices to apply for the help, and people leave them on the wayside to fend for themselves.”
He said under former minister of the People of Social Development Dr Glenn Ramadharsingh a policy was being drafted to have people enrolled in their system from the moment doctors declare them disabled at the hospitals. However, since Ramadharsingh’s dismissal, that proposal has been halted.