Health News - Mobility scooter user Janet Walker forced to use pieces of rotten wood after special ramp stolen

Published: 31 March, 2011
by TOM FOOT

Each day is an uphill battle for Janet

THE ramp leading from the street into Janet Walker’s council flat consists of two pieces of rotten plywood. 

It is a shaky, makeshift replacement for a metal version that was stolen while she was in hospital in December.

The disabled 61-year-old, who lives in Kentish Town, suffers from severe Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and struggles with a catalogue of other debilitating illnesses.

She can walk, but unsteadily, with a stick as a result of two recent strokes. Ms Walker has endured bouts of pneumonia, depression and also suffers from sleep-apnea, a condition bringing on abnormal pauses in breathing or instances of abnormally low breathing.

She recently found herself trapped on the floor after leaving her Careline push button alarm in the shower. 

Ms Walker has a mobility scooter parked in the entrance to her home in Oseney Crescent. It means she has to squeeze past it to get to the door. It is clearly a fire hazard. Despite complaints to the council, no replacement street ramp has arrived.

“When I go around on my scooter and I meet other disabled people like me,” she said. “There are other people living with similar problems living round here. Camden has been good to me in some respects. But I think the way they are treating the disabled when it comes to housing is not good. It’s all very well having this Decent Homes initiative – but people need to be able to get into their homes. I’ve been in this flat for 18 years and I’ve suffered no end.

“I need a two-bedroom flat. The doctor says I need a live-in carer, but there is no space. I have a care plan at the moment when carers come. My left-hand side is weak. Sometimes it gives way and I am straight down.”

Ms Walker has a letter from a doctor at her local Caversham Practice stating that she needs a live-in carer.  She told the New Journal on Tuesday she feared being found “like Jennyfer Spencer” – the disabled woman who was found dead in her un-adapted fifth-floor flat in Gospel Oak in March last year.

“The sleep apnea – it means I just fall asleep and I forget to breathe. Sometimes I’m in church and I just nod off,” said Ms Walker. “There’s nothing I can do. It doesn’t happen when I’m on the scooter though, I wouldn’t use it otherwise.”

Ms Walker, who goes to a church service in Tottenham Court Road each Sunday, said her situation and the death of her mother last year had a profound effect on her. She wept as she told how police “burst into her home” as she prepared to take her own life on Boxing Day.

Ms Walker, who grew up in Yorkshire and studied psychology at Manchester University,  used to run a chefs and butlers company called Helpers that was based in Highgate Road. The business collapsed when her relationship with her partner ended. 

She added: “I grew up in the 1950s and 1960s with the Beatles and our values were very different then. I think what the government is doing now with the cuts to everything is really ter­rible.”

A council spokeswoman said Ms Walker currently did not meet the criteria for ramps because she had bought her own scooter. But she was due for a re-assessment.