Dear Editor,
The things I see, hear and read about daily surely lend credence to the statement: “If poor people live by the rules that were made for them, they will die”. In the Sunday Stabroek of March 6, there was a bold headline: ‘Former prisoner seeking compensation for leg lost while weeding cemetery’ along with a picture of the victim Jerry Baird standing on one leg with the aid of two crutches. As the story is told, the brother was sentenced for three years for being in possession of narcotics; he was nearing the end of his sentence and was hired to work as part of the prison’s social programme directed to well-behaved inmates showing signs of leadership. Thus is was while working at the Bourda Cemetery the blade of his weeding machine broke, injuring his right leg and resulting in its amputation. This happened in December 2014.
With the aid of crutches the brother moves about and is justifiably pleading for compensation from the prison. But the authorities are saying that they have given him money on three occasions, which according to Jerry Baird is somewhat misleading since that money was used for assisting with medical expenses: “Nothing, nothing they ain’t doing fuh me,” he says.
Now no one has to be told about the severe setback, distress and disadvantage one suffers following the loss of a limb. Just what and who are those officials? This brother was in confinement, under their keep, hired by them, so why can’t they furnish him with a prosthetic leg? Is that asking too much? What’s the big deal, the brother is 28 years old with his whole life ahead of him?
Editor, there is a very sad point to note here: Jerry Baird was hospitalised for three weeks and upon his discharge he was returned to prison, even though he was considered well behaved and had qualified for the social programme. Then why return him to prison to complete a few months or weeks as if he constituted a threat while recuperating from an amputated leg? No wonder the prison is overcrowded. The brother is not lying when he said they have dismissed him, and are not doing anything for him. And this is my point: no one cares a toss or sees the ordinary, poor, everyday folks, a pattern within the scheme of things that appears fixed. And it never ceases to amaze me how many self-righteous, God-fearing folks remain so thunderously silent in the presence of glaring wrong and wanton advantage being taken of the less fortunate. In our society the reality is that people like Jerry Baird will forever be invisible; the powers that be will always bow to the words of those in authority like themselves, because this is how the status quo is maintained. I don’t think I will ever forget the words I saw on a May Day picket, quaint but incisive: “One day the poor will have nothing left to eat but the rich.”
Yours faithfully,
Frank Fyffe
