The International Day of Persons with Disability has just been celebrated. There have been many improvements along the years but some issues have been improving at too slow a rate and need to be accelerated.

The National Parents’ Society of Persons with Disability would like to bring to the attention two of the many items that ought to be considered for Malta Vision 2015, targets for implementation by the authorities and local councils.

The first issue is residential homes for the disabled.

Parents, especially those in the older age bracket, are increasingly getting worried about the future of their disabled children once they are no longer able to take care of them. The few residential homes that exist are either fully occupied or have long waiting lists and the present practice of placing these persons in institutions such as old peoples’ homes or, worse, at Mount Carmel Hospital, is deplorable. For peace of mind parents would like to see their disabled child happily settled in a residential home while they are still around.

The NPSPD believes that about 1,500 disabled persons will be requiring this sort of accommodation in the next 10 to 15 years. There is no way this demand will be satisfied at the present rate of providing residential homes.

One way around this problem suggested by the NPSPD is for all local councils to take ownership of their citizens’ problems and work to establish and manage these types of residential homes in their localities, with help and support from Aġenzija Sapport and local voluntary organisations.

These homes could be partially funded by the government and the parents themselves according to their means. Such homes would have the added advantage that disabled persons would remain in their familiar locality among the people they know and, thus, lessen the trauma of leaving their parental home and environment.

The second issue is that of removing the barriers of accessibility in public areas, especially footpaths in all towns and villages.

In a town and city the public way is the space around buildings that enables mobility as well as being used for other purposes in accordance with established rules and regulations. The public way is a very important element in coexistence among people and for this reason it is essential that both its design and the facilities and furniture installed on it should facilitate as much as possible its use by and for all citizens. People with disabilities now use such spaces more and more and the public way must, therefore, be constantly adapted to ensure we can all fully enjoy the right to mobility.

Presently in Malta the only obligation is to make new footpaths and buildings fully accessible to all. It is high time after 10 years of the law of equal opportunities enactment that all public places in towns and villages should also be rendered fully accessible providing equal opportunities to all.

It is no use that only a small percentage, which we estimate at about five per cent, of Malta’s footpaths are fully accessible with flush ramps etc and there is no continuity or access in older pavements obliging wheelchair users to move onto the street along with the vehicles.

Other cities abroad, such as Barcelona in Spain, have already implemented measures for access for all. Barcelona has been working for years to establish a city without barriers. This ambition was given specific form in 1996 with the approval of the municipal accessibility plan, whose objective was to adapt the public way, public transport, municipal facilities used by the public, parks, gardens and beaches, traffic lights and reserved parking spaces over a 10-year period. Several conditions had been set to render streets accessible according to appropriate specifications including obstacle-free path, minimum width, maximum percentage incline angle, accessible pedestrian crossings with level, differentiated paving and maximum incline of two per cent , audible traffic lights etc...

By January 2007, more than 90 per cent of the city’s 1,287 kilometres of public way was accessible, the exception being 180 kilometres of streets whose physical characteristics (principally excessive incline) made it impossible for them to be classified as accessible according to the criteria established in the regulations.

Malta has the advantage of being small, so such a programme might reach its targets in a shorter time. As an example, if a contractor corrects three ramps a day, then, if working for 48 weeks in a year, 705 ramps would be fully accessible. If this is done in each town and village then isn’t implementation of such a programme realistic? Why do most zebra crossings have high kerbs and not flush ramps? What are local councils managed by both main political parties waiting for?

Mobility impaired persons being elderly people, disabled persons, parents with buggies, injured persons etc and their friends, families and companions are citizens like other people and should have equal access for mobility.

The author is PRO of the National Parents’ Society for Persons with Disability.