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WANDSWORTH, UK: Cuts Are ‘A Tragedy’ By Charles Heymann - [log in to unmask] FRIDAY 12th March 2004 10:27am Gladys Whigham is not a terrifying sight quite the opposite. She looks like the grandmother everyone would love to have. But this little octogenarian has twice in the last year sat at the end of the long committee table in Wandsworth Town Hall and berated councillors for proposing to cut the council's £2,805 grant to the Wandsworth branch of the Parkinson's Disease Society, which she chairs. Last year, she said, she surprised herself when the social services overview and scrutiny committee overturned the proposal after her heartfelt pleas. This year, she was ignored and the branch now faces having to scrap its community support worker, who offers advice and care for 50 Parkinson's Disease sufferers in the borough. "There is no alternative. We are the only society in the country which works for Parkinson's Disease," said Mrs Whigham. "Unless we could find funding from elsewhere and everyone is looking for funding from elsewhere we would be making our own people pay for their own care. That is not giving them a service." Her involvement with Parkinson's Disease started when her husband Gilbert contracted the progressive neurological condition in 1978. "I nursed him for 10 years with quite an acute form of Parkinson's. He became unable to do anything for himself, not able to get out of bed and he could not eat properly. Everything that had to be done, I had to do it for him. "I was very bewildered at first and did not know what I was doing and the right kind of nursing he needed." She is not alone. Parkinson's carers and sufferers tend to be elderly themselves and simply not able to cope with the enormous emotional and physical strain the condition causes, from its distinctive tremor to agonising muscular rigidity. The range of conditions, from the more mainstream condition to the rarer and more acute multiple system atrophy or progressive supranuclear palsy, means many carers do not know how to best look after sufferers even in sheltered housing and nursing homes. This is where the Parkinson's Disease Society steps in. Wandsworth's own branch was set up in 1987 by late Putney MP Hugh Jenkins' wife Marie with Mrs Whigham as secretary, to build links with St George's Hospital and other therapy centres, as well as hosting speakers at its monthly meetings. Seven years later, Wandsworth Council became the first local authority to make a grant to the society so the branch could employ a worker with specialist knowledge of the condition and be able to offer branch members physio- occupational and speech therapy. All that is under threat. The group, mainly made up of pensioners, has three-quarters of a year's funding left for all its activities from members' subscriptions, donations and its three days fundraising at Sainsbury's in Garratt Lane every year. Without continued funding for the new community support worker, appointed this week, time is running out for the Parkinson's sufferers in the borough. Mrs Whigham said the council must look again at its decision: "If the funding does go, it really is a tragedy. The council is turning away its own people." Wandsworth branch meetings of the society are held on the last Tuesday of each month from September to April at Earlsfield Baptist Church Hall, Magdalen Road, from 2pm to 4pm, with outings from May to August. Write to 23 Oxford Road, SW15 2LG, or phone and fax 020 8788 2745. For more information visit http://www.parkinsons.org.uk SOURCE: Wandsworth Borough Guardian, UK http://tinyurl.com/3xtvj * * * ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn