Luljeta Rugji walked for the last time when she was 20. Her story for the last steps on Saranda coast long ago, s not the only ream left in her memory. This woman, for whom life reserved until now very difficult and painful moments, never thought that the state one day would leave with nothing. Luljeta suffers from an illness known as muscular Dystrophy (Myopathy). As a result of her sickness, she could not walk since she was 20. Signs of the illness appeared when she was adolescent and in a few years Luljeta had to sit on the invalid’s chair. Her illness was not the only misfortune in Rugji family. Very soon the same sickness appears in her brother, Sazan. The appearance of this illness in more than one family member is not the only case. Luli has noted tens of families having two, three or four invalids because of dystrophy. The misfortune of these people rests not only on the inherited illness but that they experience but also on the total abandoning of the state. Luljeta tells that her parents are very old who care until their life’s end about these sickly children. A little while ago a small number of invalids managed to win the state support. After protests on the street and a hunger strike, the government (at that time government Majko) decided to pay a care aid for these invalids, create centers for muscular therapy, subsidy electrical energy, fixed telephone and a quantity of fuel for motorist means of moving. The category in which Lindita is included remained out of this legal assistance. Only the people who had invalidity caused by fire arms and accidents profited from Majko government decision. To show life difficulties of these individuals and their families suffices a little from Luljeta’s difficult years. After some years sick, Luljeta left her family in Saranda. First to Tirana, she comes with the hope that one day she would find a cure for her illness. More than the hope to recover – says Luljeta – in Tirana I feared that one day my old parents would leave this life and together with my brother we would be left alone, therefore a solution should have been found. But knocks on stat doors have had no success until now. After some years, they send Luljeta away from the hospital where she was taking shelter. Exactly in 2000, when the Hospital Centre had just been baptized by the name of Mother Teresa, Luljeta required to stay in this hospital imploring not to send her out. The institution managers decided to send away the patient for which no cure or recovery has been found by medicine. In this clash with state inhumanness, another woman in misfortune extends her hand to Luljeta. Brigida Omeri, one of the hospital caretakers, who raises alone her 6 year old son, invites her to stay in her house. So, after 3 years, Luljeta lives in a small house without minimal conditions. But, with much pain, she says that she misses her mother, which is closing her final days in Saranda. I also miss my brother, Sazan, for whom Mother Teresa sisters are caring in Tirana. Though he is near, it is 3 months I haven’t seen him – says Luljeta. In Albanian none thinks that we are people like the rest, that the streets, the buildings, and public transport vehicles should be constructed in this way that we move there as well. Near her bed there is a project drafted by Luljeta and her lawyer friend. The Project bears the title “Common House”. This should be a care institution, where invalids, with no relatives, and no possibility for care, live together. There they should be under state care and an administration that would continuously draw the donors’ attention. I have also opened a bank account in the International Commercial Bank 1/001/000859/1, but the state should show its interest first, by recognizing our invalid status, and then give us the possibility of a building to open the common house. Many invalids may be sheltered here for whom old people care today, who one day will leave life, with the burden and sorrow about the fact who will care later on about their invalid children. We also are citizens of this country and we need its care more than other citizens because we are invalids. Many of us vote. Even when we can’t cast the vote by our hands we do it by our teeth, but the state should care for us because we are children of this people, as the rest of the states do. |
