Bengaluru: Differently-abled people not only have to deal with their situation but also the insensitivity of the abled people. Stares, jeers and laughs are part of their day. But, to have to experience such a reaction from someone in the hospitality field is more than a little offensive, especially since they are supposed to have been trained to be sensitive to people with special needs.
Differently-abled social activist Jeeja Ghosh, who has a condition called cerebral palsy, was rather shocked on the evening of January 9, when she was at the Kempegowda International Airport and a female security guard allegedly screamed after laying eyes on Ghosh. The social activist was at the airport to catch her flight to Kolkata.
Ghosh said that she was escorted in a wheelchair to the security check area by an airline porter. As she entered the cubicle for the security check, she tried to get up from her seat, as is her habit. Her involuntary gait and slurred speech seemed to put the female security personnel at unease as she became “hysterical as if she had been attacked by an alien creature”, and ran out screaming.
A spokesperson of the BIAL said that support staff are trained and sensitised to differently abled persons, adding that their staff care for the special needs of the passengers seriously.
Ghosh has tried to take this incident lightly but says that not all people in her shoes will be able to take it the same way, and urged the airport authorities to make sure that all their staff is sensitised so that no one else will have to go through such an embarrassing situation.
Earlier in 2016, the apex court had directed Spice Jet to pay Ghosh Rs 10 Lakh in damages for having been forcefully alighted from the plane.
