Centre that helped paralysed man move risks being disabled

Lawrence Mercieca woke up one day with a tingling, numb feeling in his right hand and neck, no surprise after a lifetime of working as a port worker handling merchandise.

After enduring this bit of discomfort for a month-and-a-half, Mr Mercieca, 61, visited a specialist upon his wife's insistence. After a series of tests it resulted that he had a slip disc; nothing that could not be cured with a straightforward operation.

The date was set and Mr Mercieca entered hospital, assured that this was a common procedure with minimal risk and that the next day he would be back on his feet - except he never walked again.

Four-and-a-half years later Mr Mercieca is confined to a wheelchair and is battling his despair to get some movement back in his paralysed body through regular exercise and therapy at Razzett tal-Hbiberija, in Marsascala.

"When I came to after the operation I couldn't stir any part of my body. The only thing I could move were my eyes. When I accused the doctor of ruining me, he insisted he had done a good job," he said, recounting the day that destroyed his life and threw him into a living hell of depression and pain.

"The excuse was that my blood pressure plummeted during the operation causing the supply of oxygen to the spine to stop flowing. But somebody was responsible for ensuring my blood pressure remained stable."

When doctors told him there was no hope he would ever recover, Mr Mercieca fell into a deep depression and lost his will to live.

He would beg nursing staff to throw him out of the window and picked fights with those who visited him at hospital. The mere thought that he would never be able to get out of bed again to pursue his pastimes horrified him.

"You could say he was practically dead. The shock was so huge that I barely ate. I laugh now to think that I had attempted to follow so many different diets and I never succeeded in losing weight, yet at the time I was as thin as anything," his wife Grace said with a smile.

After the incident, the life of the Mercieca family was put on hold. They alternated shifts to make sure there was always someone next to him.

After eight weeks, Mr Mercieca was transferred to the spinal unit at Boffa Hospital where he stayed for nine months.

At the time, the news was sombre. Mrs Mercieca was told that her husband would never recover and they advised her to find a "property with a yard to allow him to get an occasional breath of fresh air" - she passed out at the verdict.

However, Mrs Mercieca and her son refused to give up on him and they patiently persisted, hoping that matters would improve.

With some luck Mr Mercieca was referred to Razzett tal-Hbiberija, which provides free advanced therapy to people with disabilities.

The centre's chief executive, Nathan Farrugia, said the fact that Mr Mercieca could walk a few steps with the help of a frame after being paralysed was "quite miraculous".

The therapists at the centre noted a flicker in Mr Mercieca's thumb so they focused on trying to bring back some form of movement. By attending the centre three times a week, he started improving and today he uses the high-tech gym, which is specially tailored for those who endure some form of disability, as well as the swimming pool.

"I have managed to strengthen my arms, but I still cannot move the fingers of my right hand. At least I can now feed myself with the left," Mr Mercieca said.

"If Razzett didn't exist I would be a living corpse; I would have never made such progress. If Razzett ever had to close down, my condition would deteriorate. The other day I was sick and couldn't come for two weeks and I became stiff."

"Razzett is slowly giving me back a semblance of independence," he said.

Last month The Times featured an article highlighting the fact that Razzett was walking a financial tightrope and it was "pleading" with the government to start paying a fraction of the services it provided to society for free.

"Would the government bat an eyelid if we were to close down because we can no longer afford to finance this place? Do we have to resort to tactics such as threatening to close down - as some charities have done and succeeded - in order to get funding," Mr Farrugia had asked.

This situation worried those who like Mr Mercieca depend heavily on the centre for their well-being. If he had to pay for the service he would have to fork out between Lm12 and Lm24 each time, something he can ill afford.

"We have asked the government to help because several doctors are referring patients. What's uncomfortable for us is that because the services are good more people are coming here, which increases our costs tremendously," Mr Farrugia said.

"It is our mission to help these people, but we cannot continue doing it on our own. We have been consistently asking the government to pay for a mere 25 per cent of the patients' bill, but all we have had so far are promises."

This would amount to about Lm50,000 a year and the government's contribution would be a subsidy-per-use service.

At the moment there are 475 children and 500 adults with special needs who require some form of therapy and use the centre's wide-ranging services on a regular basis. It also provides 15 voluntary organisations with free services for its clients.

The number of people who use their services continues to increase every year, among them those who have been involved in traffic accidents and those who need hydrotherapy. Five years ago a mere 200 people used its services; today this number has increased five-fold.