The high cost of di­a­pers and clean­ing prod­ucts is mak­ing it dif­fi­cult for peo­ple who have to care for their loved ones with cere­bral pal­sy. This con­cern was raised by sev­er­al par­ents of chil­dren with the con­di­tion when they col­lect­ed ham­pers and care pack­ages from the Dr Glenn Ra­mad­hars­ingh Foun­da­tion for Spe­cial Chil­dren on Christ­mas Eve at his Freeport of­fice.

Ali­cia Crev­elle, who cares for her daugh­ter, said di­a­pers can cost more than $800 per month. She said there is al­so the cost of clean­ing sup­plies and oth­er skin care prod­ucts. Crev­elle said since her daugh­ter Jarisa Crev­elle turned 18, she has been re­ceiv­ing a dis­abil­i­ty grant. But she said it is bare­ly enough to cov­er all the costs.

Ted­der Dun­can and Julie Ba­lo-Ganesh, two par­ents with chil­dren who both have cere­bral pal­sy said there should be some sys­tem in place where care­givers of those with the con­di­tion can get some form of dis­count on the cost of dis­pos­able di­a­pers.

Dr Glenn Ra­mad­hars­ingh, the head of the foun­da­tion, said it has been 13 years his or­gan­i­sa­tion has been de­liv­er­ing care pack­ages to as­sist those with spe­cial needs. Ra­mad­hars­ingh said he gets do­na­tions of sup­plies from Pen­ny­wise Cos­met­ics Ltd and oth­er cor­po­rate spon­sors. He said peo­ple with cere­bral pal­sy are among the most vul­ner­a­ble in so­ci­ety. He said many with the con­di­tion are de­pen­dent on oth­ers for the rest of their lives since they are un­able to work or have some form of in­de­pen­dence to take charge of their own lives.

“A child that is dif­fer­ent­ly-abled needs spe­cial help and those are the groups that we need to pump re­sources in­to to cre­ate some lev­el of so­cial eq­ui­ty,” he said.

Dr Ra­mad­hars­ingh said the gov­ern­ment should give a spe­cial main­te­nance grant to peo­ple with cere­bral pal­sy since they re­quire ex­ten­sive care.

The for­mer min­is­ter of so­cial de­vel­op­ment un­der the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship ad­min­is­tra­tion said those who live with cere­bral pal­sy al­so have men­tal and phys­i­cal chal­lenges. He called on the gov­ern­ment to take a proac­tive ap­proach to deal with the prob­lems fac­ing par­ents of chil­dren with the con­di­tion. He said many of these chil­dren are born in low-in­come house­holds and to sin­gle par­ents who are of­ten left strug­gling to pro­vide ad­e­quate care.