Elderly man seeks help to buy wheelchair

May 27, 2019
Brenton Orr uses his wheelchair to travel around the Corporate Area.
Brenton Orr uses his wheelchair to travel around the Corporate Area.
Brenton Orr, a wheelchair-bound man from Maxfield Avenue, travelling along Old Hope Road after one of his many visits to the University Hospital of the West Indies recently.
Brenton Orr, a wheelchair-bound man from Maxfield Avenue, travelling along Old Hope Road after one of his many visits to the University Hospital of the West Indies recently.
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Sixty-seven-year-old Brenton Orr suffers from haemophilia, a rare disorder where the blood doesn't clot normally because it lacks sufficient blood-clotting proteins. This led to his arm being amputated when he was just 16 years old.

Now he can barely walk and suffers from pain and swellings all over his body. But this might not be his greatest agony.

Whenever Orr visits the University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI) to receive the medication, which, he said, is not available at his local clinic, he does so by travelling in his wheelchair that needs to be replaced.

"I live in Maxfield (Avenue), and when I go to the hospital I use this (the wheelchair). Someone promised to get one for me, but she was calling me and couldn't get me. But it a deteriorate. See, all the tyre dem wah replace," he said.

Orr said that he visits the UHWI only when he absolutely needs to.

"If I get a cut, and I don't go to the hospital, I just bleed, bleed, bleed. I have to use this to really get to the hospital," he said.

"It difficult, very difficult. The chair nuh hard to drive, but as long as mi nah feel no pain, mi haffi just gwaan. But this don't fast enough to carry mi all the time. So, sometimes I want to come, but I can't come. I just haffi stay home," he said.

AWARE OF THE DANGERS

And although he has been using this means of transport for the past four years, Orr said that he is very aware of the dangers.

"I am very conscious moving around. I try to stay on the sidewalk. I know which hand to drive on, and some of the drivers sympathising, but not all. Some a dem just pass and like dem wah throw you off a it," he said.

Orr said that he sells eggs in his community, but that money is not enough to afford a new wheelchair. And he has no one to help him.

"I was married, but my wife died in 2013. I get two boy, but dem nuh really have it," he said.

Anyone who is willing to assist Brenton Orr may contact him at 876-323-3791.

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