Educators and students at the Helen Keller Resource Centre in Qrendi are facing a number of health and safety risks due to an unsafe jacuzzi, the Malta Union of Teachers said.
The jacuzzi, used for educational purpose, is “just a fiberglass bath tub which can hardly cater for one person let alone an educator immersed with a student,” the union said.
It could not issue any directives regarding the centre because of a court prohibitory warrant from the Commission for the Rights of Persons with Disability.
In a statement, the Commission said its warrant was against the union, the Education Ministry and the Attorney General.
It said that the points raised by the MUT could hardly be considered valid.
The Malta Union of Teachers insisted that it would continue fighting the prohibitory warrant through “legal and trade-unionistic” channels.
Water had failed essential tests in past
Speaking at a press conference in front of the resource centre, MUT president Marco Bonnici said that educators went into the jacuzzi and remained there until four students used the service.
“Due to mobility limitations, the student is practically over the educator’s body, who holds him or her to remain in an upright position,” he said.
Changing students in the jacuzzi also causes problems, he added, noting that students needed to be lifted out of the bath, cleaned and changed by two other educators. Mr Bonnici added that there were risks of contaminated water.
The centre said that the water was tested once a week, but failed to provide further details, the union said, noting that the water had failed “essential tests in the past”.
The Commission however said that the jacuzzi could take 1.3 cubic metres of water and its area was of nearly four metres square. Fibreglass, it pointed out, was a material used for the building of seacraft.
The water used to fill it was that available through the normal provision channels, the quality of which was tested before a student started using the jacuzzi and also after.
Should it not meet the required parameters, this would be filtered through a system for use in agriculture and, following a cleaning process, it would be refilled with fresh water.
The commission said it believed the union was acting in good faith and thanked the thousands of educators who daily gave students an impeccable service, irrespective of whether or not they were disabled.
As an entity whose primary function was to defend persons from being discriminated against, it believed in the right of workers to make their voice heard but this, it said, should not be done to the detriment of those who depended on therapy for a better quality of life.
The CRPD did not want to shut educators up and its intervention was aimed at giving the voiceless a voice.
It said it had wished to make itself heard just in court, which was the appropriate forum when there was a warrant of prohibitory injunction, but felt it had to react publicly to the inexact points raised by the union.
Mr Bonnici also said the union did not have anything against the CRPD but expressed concern that the commission was trying to silence educators through court actions.
The CRPD should have instead joined the MUT to make sure all resources and services in place for persons with disability were not posing serious risks to them and their educators, he said.