A senior’s desperate plea for help
Tears couldn’t stop flowing as 61-year-old senior Leroy Manning made a plea for assistance. He lives in a one- room structure with tarpaulin for a roof, a dirt floor, two huge rocks protruding from the ground, makeshift windows and a zinc barring the doorway. To boot, he shares the space with his 41- yearold daughter Stephaney.
An emotional
Manning chronicled his fall into the clutches of poverty. He said that he was previously a healthy man working at the Denbigh Showground in Clarendon, where he was in charge of beautifying the perimeter. However, six years ago, while walking out on the Denbigh road, he said he felt a cramp in his right hand and before he realised what was happening, he fell down on his face.
He said he tried desperately to signal to anyone that he had a stroke, but couldn’t, until a kind Samaritan who was driving by stopped. A woman recognised him and with the assistance of the Samaritan, transported him to the May Pen Hospital. Hospitalised, Manning said two more strokes followed but he survived, although they left him on his back for four years, wearing diapers and unable to assist himself. He said that he used to live in his father’s house in Denbigh but after he was hospitalised, a relative boarded up the dwelling and locked him out. Stephaney said she was working in Kingston when she got the news that her father was in hospital and would be sent to the infirmary as he had no one to pick him up after he was discharged. She left her job and headed to Clarendon, where she took her father to her partner’s home.
However, after he kept insisting that he wanted his own space, she decided to ‘man up’ and prepare a piece of land her father had.
“I decided to myself that I am not working, I don’t have any assistance and stuff so I go on my own, chop out the place, tek it up like a man, burn some coal, plant some pumpkin, do the farming and just help miself see weh mi can do fi buy block, cement, board and stuff,” she shared.
Having got the structure up, ill fortune struck her too, as she started to experience weakness, dizziness and headaches. When she sat down, she felt as if she was toppling over. A visit to the doctor revealed she had low blood count and she is yet to fill the prescription as she has no money.
Both father and daughter are pleading for assistance for a roof over their heads as Stephaney said she is willing to work once she gets the medication and can secure a job. Her father is pleading for food as they survive on the kindness of relatives and those residents who know their situation. Walking with the use of a cane, Manning said the rocks in the centre of the room are hazardous as he fell and cut his foot.
“I like to work, nuh care how small, mi like fi work fi mi own honest bread, dats why a went back and beg back mi job but dem tell mi sey mi sick and caan work,” Manning cried.
As for Stephaney, she chooses to stay with him in the unfinished room, occasionally checking in on her children who are at her fiance’s home.
“If anybody out there who hear my voice, I would like them to give me a helping hand and a job to help myself and my kids, so I too can help someone else,” she said.