Tuesday, 1st September 2009
The “indomitable” Amy and beyond her
Last Sunday, August 30, Ariadne Massa gave the readers of The Sunday Times a gem of an interview with Amy Zahra who at the age of 21 was struck by the deadly meningococcal septicaemia. The condition robbed her of her legs and fingers but not of her dignity, courage and fighting spirit. Ariadne gave us Amy’s story without frills or even a hint of sensationalism. It was a good and warm human-interest story.
As if this terrible condition was not enough, Amy recently suffered from renal failure. It seems that lightning does strike the same place twice! Ariadne spoke to her before and after the renal transplant. Lino Spiteri followed the story with an opinion piece in The Times of August 31. The word “indomitable” in the title of this blog is taken from the title of Lino’s piece.
Amy really is indomitable. Please read the story which is still available on http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20090830/interview/on-a-limb-and-a-prayer. It will lift your spirit as it did mine. It is a story of human courage. Thank you Amy for, once more, sharing with us your experience. May your stamina, determination and courage be contagious. It is true that the story of Amy has been in the news from time to time but it is always fresh as it refreshes the spirit.
Our unsung heroes and heroines
I would like to move beyond Amy and consider those men, women, youths and children who, like Amy, struggle through incredible tribulations and suffering. Their silence lets their struggle go unnoticed; but heroic it is just the same.
I know of a:
- woman whose husband and son passed away, both victims of cancer. She is now suffering from the disease but is a spring of hope to all around her.
- Of a man whose wife fell ill during their honeymoon. She has been bed-ridden ever since. Her husband is always at her side caring and loving.
- Young man who a couple of years before marriage discovered that his fiancé had a condition which would permanently disable her. Their now-married love for each other is stronger than the disadvantages of her disability.
- Woman who battled to save her son from that terrible scourge called drugs. She suffered a lot, but now hers is the happy victory.
These and many others are the unsung heroes and heroines who strengthen the moral fibre to our society.
Caring is a need
I would like to remember all those who do not have the strength that Amy has. They have not moved on in life after being struck by some disability or some human tragedy. They suffer in silence. Their life is a wreck. They have no one to dry their tears. Every day is spent on the Calvary while they find no solace in an eventual Resurrection.
What are we doing to address and alleviate the pain of these sisters and brothers of ours?
Our culture has changed hospitality into a business and care into a profession. Please do not misunderstand what I am writing. I have nothing but gratitude and praise for all those working in the caring professions. However there is a tendency that people abrogate their duty of caring for others to the professionals whom they pay to care for others. They are too busy to care. This is a dehumanising trend. Caring for and loving others is a need we all have. We cannot satisfy this basic human need simply by paying others to do it for us. The welfare state is great. However, we need a caring society or caring individuals and not just caring bureaucrats or professionals. We have to care for, love and invest our time in the interest of those in pain, who feel lonely, who have no one to love them.
I would like to comment about two particular aspects of the interview with Amy.
Limbs that made a difference
She uses state of the art artificial silicone limbs, which were produced two years ago in the UK. “They’ve change my life”, Amy says. The journalist tells us that these artificial limbs look so real “complete with painted toenails and veins in the right places - that she could fool anyone they were her own.” Not everyone can afford such advanced prosthetic limbs as government does not provide this service. Amy says that she understands that the government cannot provide them. I get Amy’s point but I have a number of questions to posit.
Isn’t it time that the government radically reforms the present regime of providing medicines, facilities and services totally free of charge? Aren’t there many people who get free medicines which they can easily and effortlessly afford to buy? If government stops giving relatively, cheaply priced medicines to those who can buy them, it will have more money to provide freely more costly medicines to those who cannot afford them. To-day Government gives to the undeserving several medicines that are relatively inexpensive and it then have budgetary problems providing costly medicines to those who cannot pay for them. Let’s economise on the services of those who can afford paying so that we provide more to those who cannot afford to pay.
Once more the blue parking bay
Amy, in her interview, refers to a subject I had written about recently: parking for the disabled.
"People's mentality towards disabled parking places can be so aggravating. Their excuse is that they only parked there for two minutes, but their two minutes is my hour...” The interviewer told us that Amy gets angry when she says this. Like her, I get very angry at such behaviour. Let me just broach a horror story. I know of someone who purposely parked an old car in a lot that was assigned to be used as a blue parking bay. He wanted to prevent the authorities reserving it for a disable person. How cruel can some people get?
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Comments
@ R.Cutajar. Well said. Years ago I read here in the UK that children should be introduced to a new subject - how to think. I am not in the profession now so I do not know if it happened. It sounded good to me then and crucial to me now, as ever. Certainly in Malta my impression is that, as you say, children's brains are crammed with facts for exam-result purposes. Cramming anyone's brains with facts and information that have no bearing on one's day-to-day life isn't good. Although I have to say that learning thirteen subjects has its uses in that it teaches people how to be inquisitive after they leave school. I'm afraid most people do not unless they go on to higher education. And even then.....learning how to think and act is, well, Life I guess.
Reading the story about your experiences, I was left with the impression that, in so far as acquiring prosthetics, you were left to your own resources. Had I been living in Malta, I would probably have known that government does provide some basics.
Thank you for clarifying it.
T
he fact that you have no choice, does not speak well of the system. And having to travel to the UK for adjustments, presumably at your own cost, leaves a lot to be desired. As I have written to Mr. Pace, there is no earthly reason why you, and others in your situation, should have to go through such financial hardships.
Changing attitudes, especially where politics is involved, is a daunting task.
In addition to wishing you the very best, I hope that your Amputees for Amputees will be successful in raising awareness among the public of your needs.
(Who knows, maybe after you have finished your studies, you might end up in Parliament -- the best place to further your cause.)
@Steve Pace
If this problem of waste/abuse is real, then look for its source ... the top cats.
let us stop and ask ourselves for once please " are we serrounded by an air of consciesness to reflect of what goes around us?
do we have / allow time to reflect
does teachers have any energy (due to the extra job to make ends meet or whatever) or the luxury to deviate from their curriculum and highlight some noble taught and igniting fantastic debates in the process EXAM RESULTS PRESSURES is the order of the day for sure You know I have noticed that since these conditions hamper one's normal living conditions that person starts reflecting on life's amazing hidden good qualities and i wonder if any University students grabs this "subject" as a form of thesis ( sorry if I am overstepping) I wish I could have the time to .
In these cases one easily quenches the sour taste which our modern life is trowing at us with the sweet taste of honey , ever gulped a spoonfull of honey and left it in your mouth imbuing the rich amazing taste with the toils of those indominitable bees?
PeaceTo all
Just to make things clear....the goverment does provide prosthesis....but there is no choice like in other European Countries, everyone gets the same whether you are 5, 20 or 80 years old and the service and prosthesis given are not of a developed country like Malta but of low quality and comfort.
There are two glaring problems presented in this topic:
1) The amputees having to pay for the prosthetic(s) -- a very real problem;
2) Waste/abuse of free medicines -- most likely hatched up by the high-priests of the unfettered free market who are hell-bent to exterminate socialized medicine.
Both are unique. Asking for a solution to the second in order to solve the first, is not prudent.
The first problem is very real. It should be dealt with without delay. There is no excuse for it.
The second one appears to be nothing more than conjecture based on gut feelings. I do not believe that it can possibly exist, but if it is true, that is, it is based on facts, then the place to start looking for its solution is the Boardroom/management of your public health directorate (or whatever it's called). Or, start with the Minister responsible.
Socialized medicine is not the monster that its opponents make it out to be. Just look at the Canadian public health system which covers every single Canadian. Then check out the free market version of our neighbours, the USA, with millions left without any coverage.
Malta's system is a gem. Don't ruin it.
@Fr Borg and Steve Pace
I find it hard to believe that there can be such a grand-scale abuse of medicines. I am assuming that Malta isn't different than Canada where presciption-drugs require a doctor's order.
Also, it is not likely that a healthy person would pretend to be sick in order to get drugs -- who is the doctor who would be fooled?
A sick person, under a doctor's care, would be very foolish to take more than the prescribed dose.
How can the State pay for Amy's limbs?
In the absence of hard data, we can only guess.
Malta's population: 405,165
Citizens using the health services: 325,000 (over 80% of population. Source: University of Malta Medical School)
Number of amputations: 200 (Source: the linked article)
200 out of 325,000 is a statistically insignificant number -- next to nothing.
Budgeting is setting priorities. There is no earthly reason why the Amys of Malta should be left out. To help them, pressure your elected parliamentarians to act. The money is there.
Its true! but I will stop expecting freebies from the government when the government stops demanding us to pay more and more taxes..
This brings to mind something that, though it has nothing to do with the above mentioned, however, it still has to do with the insensitivity of some people who do not take into consideration the feelings of others.
There was a time – maybe it still is practiced today - when people who wanted to be boarded out, and had nothing physically wrong with them, were advised to use the so-called excuse of a “mental breakdown” or “depression”, which supposedly was enough to get them what they wanted. To some people who, like me, had gone through a bad patch of depression, such an excuse hurt deeply for it trivialized the suffering of a person struggling to overcome it.
"However, I think that even the non-controversial parts can lead to an interesting discussion".
True.
@ Amy Joan Zahra:
Thanks for being an inspiration to us all.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/blogs/view/20090830/interview/on-a-limb-and-a-prayer
The link you have provided is broken.