Petrina Francis, Staff Reporter

Imagine going to a hospital and having to carry your 12-year-old child up two flights of stairs, on your back, in order to see a doctor, because the elevators at that section of the hospital are not working.

Well, Linda Walker-Henry, the mother of a son who has muscular dystrophy - a condition which results in the progressive weakening and degeneration of the skeletal muscles which control movement, has to do this every week when she takes her wheelchair-bound child to the outpatient clinic at the Bustamante Hospital for Children in St. Andrew.

"For four yearsnow the elevators have not been working, and every time I take Kareem here, I have to carry him on my back," she told The Gleaner yesterday, following the symbolic launch of free health care for children under 18 years, held at the only referral hospital for children in Jamaica.

Frustrating

Mrs. Walker-Henry said this has been frustrating her and, sometimes when she cannot manage to take her son up the stairs, she has to go on the road or on the hospital compound and seek help from strangers in order for her son to see the doctors.

"I cannot manage anymore, and every time I complain to the hospital authorities, they say they are working on it," she said, noting that she too has a problem with one of her legs.

A senior staff member at the hospital, to whom Mrs. Walker-Henry had made several complaints, said the matter was being addressed.

petrina.francis@gleanerjm.com