A 61-year-old diabetic woman, stricken in bed with a stroke for the last three years, blind in both eyes and unable to speak, is being denied a basic constitutional right which would ultimately guarantee her the right to life.Norma Hitlall of Best Road, West Coast Demerara, ever since she became ill, has applied to the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security for public assistance. Her application was eventually approved and in January 2014 she began receiving public assistance.

However, to date she has not received her book for the new year – 2015, which means that she has not received any payment for the year.
Norma, who, because of her condition is virtually confined to bed 24/7, lives with her 90-year-old mother, Jasoda Raaja, who tries her best to share what she has with her, but there is a limit to how much she can contribute, since she is herself a pensioner.
The sick woman’s distraught mother Jasoda shared with the Guyana Chronicle her experiences of constantly sending a grandchild to the Pouderoyen office to uplift her mother’s public assistance, only to be told that the book has not come (to the office) as yet.
And to compound the old woman’s woes, at age 90, she is being made to pay monthly electricity bills to the Guyana Power and Light Company and water rates to the Guyana Water Inc. at its West Demerara facility when she is supposed to be granted exemption.
Jasoda produced as evidence, two of her most recent water bills and receipts for payment. In January she paid $9,000 and in February paid another bill for $13,000, the equivalent of 100 per cent of what she is being paid as monthly old age pension.
“If I got to pay meh whole pension for one month water bill, how me gun able look after meh daughter?” she sullenly asked. She said when she asked the GWI how much water they think she can use, they told her that she is allowed 600 gallons. “How in the name of earth me gun use 600 gallon water in a month?” she asked, looking puzzled. In fact, the old woman said she has black tanks in which she collects rain water which she feels is best.
The frustrated, nervous, and deeply distraught mother, out of deep compassion for her sick and helpless daughter, is appealing for the authorities at the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security to intervene on her daughter’s behalf, with a view to having the woman’s public assistance payment expedited.
Meanwhile, the GWI is also being asked to cause the nonagenarian woman to be exempted from paying water bills.