MKCC 2024

Title: Asa suffering from stroke and paralyzed with a family of three
Date: 16-May-2003

One goal of SHELTER’s Community Services is to provide support to families in crisis. In August 2002, SHELTER Community Services staff helped a paralyzed man and his family who stay on the slope of a hill near Taman Melawati, KL.

Asa* is forty years old. Seven months ago, he suffered a stroke and is paralyzed from the waist down.

He stays in a dilapidated one-room shack, located on a hilly slope. There are three families living in the area. There is no electricity supply and the families share a generator which is only switched on at night. The family depends on water from a spring nearby.

Asa worked as a grass-cutter, earning about RM300 per month and his wife, Jane, was a full-time housewife. He was not taken to the hospital for treatment since the day he suffered the stroke as his relatives are too far away to help and no one was able to carry him down the slope.

It was left to Jane to take care of the family. She even resorted to begging.

Their three children have stopped schooling after Standard 6, but they cannot be employed anywhere as they are underage.

SHELTER Community Services staff contacted St John’s Ambulance to bring Asa down the slope to the General Hospital for a medical checkup. He stayed in the hospital for a few days and the doctor did a thorough checkup on him. SHELTER Community Services also provide food aid to the family on a monthly basis.

Jane is now working as a cleaner in an apartment block.

SHELTER Community Services is trying to work with an agency to provide help to the family in a more constructive way. With this, Asa and Jane and their three children will be helped, thanks to SHELTER’s Community Services.

*not his real name



[ Back ] [ Print Friendly ]