Desperate pleas from disabled

5:33pm Monday 28th January 2008

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DISABLED people and their carers have been telling the Review how the Jubilee Centre, which may be on the point of closure, is a crucial social lifeline.

While the day centre in Catherine Street provides physical exercises and speech therapy, it is the personal interaction that the network of friends which has developed there dreads losing.

Wheelchair-bound Grace Hallifax, 90, who lives in Noke Shot, Harpenden, said: "I am very concerned - if it closes, I will have nothing left to live for.

"This would not be living, it would be existing.

"It means the world to me.

"When you are stuck inside your house, you tend to lose your friends - but Jubilee has given me the chance to make new friends.

"I feel completely different when I am there."

A county council consultation on closing the centre finished last week, and a decision will be made by the cabinet on February 18.

The authority proposes to provide the services at other centres, through charities and by paying people to help them get private sector care.

Grace's son Terry said: ""Before she went there,she was imprisoned in her house - but now she has friends she can talk to, not just at the centre, but on the phone in the evening.

"They are talking about subsidising people to have their own care, but that is not so easy.

"The chance to get out, meet with others and make friends has changed her life.

"But now it very much looks that this will soon end, resulting in returning to her previous state. "She just could not take it.

"My mother has worked in nursing for most of her working life, caring for others, and deserves better treatment.

"If they do close the Jubilee Centre it will be the end of her.

"She is very independent and intelligent, which makes it harder being on one's own all of the time.

"She cannot accept that."

Bonnie Williams, whose father William Mulligan, 79, lives in Warwick Road, St Albans and is paralysed down one side after a stroke, said: "The people in the Jubilee are like his family.

"He goes four mornings a week. It is his only way of seeing anybody.

"There are young people there as well, and the older people really enjoy talking to them - it is a real community.

"The staff are amazing.

"It was a lifeline for my mother, who could not have coped without it.

"If it wasn't for the Jubilee, he would have had to go into a home.

"Vesta Lodge where the county council proposes to relocate some of the services is not the same - it is an old people's home."

Mary Drucker, whose mother Concetta, 76, lost the ability to both walk and speak after a fall and is cared for by her 81-year-old husband Emilio in Maxwell Road, St Albans, said: "Since she went to the Jubilee about a year ago, it has opened up their lives.

"Mother sits at home looking miserable in her wheelchair - as soon as the Jubilee driver gets here to pick her up, she starts laughing.

"They are fantastic, from the drivers all the way down.

"It gives her the chance to get into a different environment, with people who care about her.

"They do exercises, and speech therapy in both Italian and English.

"She has regained her a bit speech with them, even though she doesn't talk to us - it is wonderful."She just loves going to Jubilee. If it closes, it is so important to keep all the staff and clients together.

"They all look out for each other, and they have fun. There is a real mix of ages - it is very depressing for an old person to just be with other old people all the time.

"These people will be devastated if it closes - if it stopped, I don't know what would happen to Mum."

Mervyn Richards of Marshalswick, whose wife Lynette, 64, is dumb and crippled through multiple sclerosis, said: "It gives her a life away from me, which is extremely important for both of us.

"The Jubilee gives her a social environment, and interaction with people in similar, although better, situations.

"She can't speak, but she can communicate through blinking and her facial expression.

"The staff at Jubilee are absolutely brilliant.

"If we just got money for her to get care in the private sector, that frightens me.

"They will have timesheets, and they will have to get to the next client so they make a profit.

"We don't feel we have been listened to at all."

Harpenden Labour parliamentary candidate Oli De Botton said: "Hopefully the story of Mrs. Halifax will illustrate to Herts County Council the damage and hurt that their proposals will cause. "There is now an opportunity for the council to do the right thing and scrap their plans to close the Jubilee Centre. Let's all hope they see sense."

His St Albans counterpart Roma Mills said: "It is a real community with a very happy atmosphere.

"I am very unhappy about them all being split up and sent to services which will be in different places and which don't even exist yet."