Stella Kpormegbe

54-year-old Trader at Ashaiman in the Greater Accra Region, Ms Stella Kpormegbe has cautioned disabled persons not to allow themselves to be married out because people have sympathy for them.

She said they (disabled persons) also had value and skills which they could bring on board in any rela­tionship so under no circumstances should they be undermined.

She said these in an interview with The Spectator last Friday when she shared her experience as a disabled person and also to encourage others who have the same fate.

Ms Kpormegbe recalled that 30 years ago when she woke up from bed, she never imagined that something would happen to change her life forever.

She said she was going about her routine assignment for the day as a seamstress apprentice, and was boiling some water on a coal pot to bath when her left leg hit the coal pot and some of the boil­ing water splashed on her feet.

She said in an attempt to clean it, her right knee cap “twisted” and that was her journey to disabil­ity.

The trader said all attempts to get her back on her feet with tradi­tional and orthodox medicines had been unsuccessful.

She said almost four years later, her right foot was amputated from what she learnt was a cancer of a sort and now she wears a prosthet­ic leg and supports it with crutch­es.

The native of Keta in the Volta Region said she had to accept the fact that things had changed and she had to start new life as a dis­abled person.

She said though it was a diffi­cult decision to make, it reduced the mental agony on her and made her start learning to do things in a new way.

She said, at the time of the inci­dent, she was married with a baby who was about a year-old and her husband was very helpful in seeking support to restore her health.

She said along the line she suspected that peer pressure and wrong counsel gave her husband a change in attitude and mind so he finally abandoned her for another woman.

She said that with the support of some of her family members and friends and the motivation she needed to be of sound mind to take care of her little child, she managed to put all the challenges behind her to move on.

Miss Kpormegbe admitted that life had not been easy but she had always encouraged herself and become a better version of herself despite her disability.

She said she was currently a proud grandmother with three grandchildren and also supporting her daughter to raise them with her son-in-law.

In a reaction to why she didn’t remarry, she said “many people seem to have a challenge getting involved with disabled persons be­cause they feel they (disabled peo­ple) would be a burden on them”.

She said since she did not want to be married out of pity or be disrespected, she decided to take a break from relationship and concentrate on her drinking bar business.

She was optimistic that one day the right person would appreciate her situation and come around so that she could remarry.

She advised families of per­sons with disabled spouses to be supportive not resort to casting as­persions since that made life more difficult for them (disabled spous­es) and with persons who were emotionally unstable, they could be forced to abandon their spouses just as in her case.

She said the society had more room for improvement as far as the relationship with the disabled community was concerned.

She disclosed that single persons especially females with disabilities struggled to get spouses because they were seriously dis­criminated against.

She said she had taken the task of counselling younger disabled women to be optimistic about life and give of their best as there was always a light at the end of the tunnel.

She said disabled persons if given the needed support could also contribute effectively to the development of society so they should be accepted, respected and welcomed like any abled persons in society.

From Dzifa Tetteh Tay, Ashaiman