Ronald Thwaites | About compassion and integrity

I was walking up East Street, below East Queen Street, in the downtown Kingston in the area known as Tel Aviv some years ago when a taxi stopped in front of one of the homes run by the Missionaries of the Poor. A woman who I knew alighted, unfolded a chair on the sidewalk and placed an obviously infirm old man to sit. She placed two small bags of personal effects beside him and was preparing to drive off.

“What are you doing?” “Me a leave him for Fadda HoLung to tek care a him. I can’t manage no more. Pampers alone cost nearly $1,000 every week. He is my father, yes, but he never look pon me when I was young. We live in two room on Rosemary Lane and my baby-fadda and the children say he smell bad and can’t stay there any more. Is either him or them.”

Later on, the brothers took the old man inside the hospice – as they have done with so many hundreds who are in similar circumstances. Comparatively, he was one of the fortunate ones. Many others, women too, but mostly men, end up on the street, in the hovels of the ghettos, unkempt, often underfed and under-medicated: a burden on relatives who can barely feed themselves.

Families under this kind of stress will usually try to keep the ailing mother figure – but not so the father. The census, if it ever gets finished, will count their number but not their miserable condition.

SOCIAL CASES

Last week, Jamaicans were reminded that possibly more than 10 per cent of our hospital beds are occupied by persons who no longer need to be hospitalised, but who have no one to collect them and care for them. If you are poor or have weak family links, long life becomes a curse. Check Bellevue Hospital, where it has been reported that a half of inmates are there because they have no family to care for them on discharge.

These numbers are likely to increase as harder times and rising prices hit the vulnerable majority of our population. The number of homeless persons on the street, let alone in institutions, is rising.

What does this chronic situation say about our humanity? Long before any law constraining children and relatives to care for elderly family members can have effect, we need deeper conviction about the divine value of every human life, from conception to natural death.

From infancy, Jamaican children have to be indoctrinated by example and by word that dignity is not premised on appearance, wealth or usefulness. Teaching children compassion rather than competition and recrimination will eventually change the nation. The skein of selfishness, the ideology of individualism, the trivialities of sexual relations, encouraged by popular culture, are the opposite of caring, sharing and respect for elders.

COMMON GOOD

The supreme principle of political philosophy in a democratic society, the common good, is not applied to the most vulnerable in Jamaica. In desperation, many of them plead for death. Give thanks for the army of big women, many of them abused and needy themselves, who, in countless yards and public spaces, multiply loaves and fishes to feed, bathe and minister to the bed-ridden, the forgotten and even the deportees, who are among the most forlorn of all.

So much has to change in consciousness, statute and economy for us to claim decency as a nation. A mandatory pension scheme, building on top of the optional and paltry NIS, is a first step. Then what has happened to the National Health Insurance Scheme, which has been promised as imminent so many times? Also, a partnership with churches and friendly societies to house the elderly, infirm and homeless would add to the improved but very inadequate public shelters and infirmaries. PATH is a great help when accessible, but it can’t provide a good meal each day. Thank God for the National Health Fund and Drug-Serv.

Affordable inner -city housing renewal and a revival of sites and services schemes (much beyond the one-one Project Hope house building) would seriously reduce social cases in hospitals and the increasing number of street people.

These are the goals which should dominate public discourse and budgetary allocation in place of the masquerades of waste, posing and high-life pretensions. How about a firm target to end disrespect of the elderly and relieve homelessness during Budget year 2024!

ABOUT INTEGRITY

Would Mr Holness kindly tell us how stating that you are not being investigated for unjust enrichment amounts to “political gimmicry” by a public official? Surely, removing yourself from widespread suspicion is a vital obligation to restore trust. He should be the first to encourage such transparency, even as he should hasten to clear up the still- pending certification of his own returns to the Integrity Commission. His office and respected persona require no less.

And while the ‘gag’ imposed by Cabinet to prevent commenting on issues relating to the Integrity Commission (IC) is an appropriate response to the recent excrescences of at least half a dozen ministers, surely it is perverse if used to ‘kibba’ the mouths of parliamentarians, whose constituents have a right to be sure that their representatives are not among those who seven out of every ten of us believe to be corrupt.

No one benefits from the unrefuted suspicion that sitting and adjudicating on the Integrity Commission Oversight Committee may be members who are themselves ‘persons of interest’. Why justify more dangerous contempt for the institution of Parliament? That is the situation right now. Coming after the canards against the IC personnel and the muddled attempts to delay publication of oversight reports and audits, the common man on the JUTC bus is bound to believe that there is plenty to hide.

The Prime Minister seems to want to retain the clause in the Integrity Commission Act which precludes naming persons under scrutiny. Parliamentarians and public officials, like all citizens, ought to be protected from the evil of spurious allegations – from whatever source. My understanding, however, is that a public official only falls into the category of being ‘under investigation’ after he or she has been given ample opportunity to explain the legitimate source of their assets, and to respond to whatever concerns the anti-corruption agencies may have. After all that, continued confidentiality is too much to ask. And while timely investigations are taking place, in any event for not more than six months, it is reasonable that the officer under scrutiny step away from his post of trust.

This is beginning to feel like 1971. Every week now the Government is showing more signs of defensiveness and unwillingness to be accountable. This is not good for them – nor for us.

Rev Ronald G. Thwaites is an attorney-at-law. He is former member of parliament for Kingston Central and was the minister of education. He is the principal of St Michael’s College at the UWI. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.