Tunapuna family pleads for help

2777666

SHARLENE RAMPERSAD

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After weeks of blistering heat, most people welcomed Friday’s rainfall with a sigh of relief.

But in Tunapuna, Reshma Romero and her family braced for the discomfort the weather would bring.

The roof covering the family’s home has gaping holes, allowing rain to pour in freely.

The walls are termite-infested and collapsing.

A single mother of three children, Romero does not work as she provides care for her 65-year-old bedridden father, Walter. She relies on a food card to feed her children and is now appealing to the public for assistance in putting a roof over her father’s head.

“I would just like for a comfortable roof over my father’s head so that the little years he have left he could live a little comfortable without getting wet. Ever since he suffered the head stroke, he cannot walk or talk or help himself. The most he will do is raise his hands or say ‘Uhh’, lately, he has been getting seizures.”

Guardian Media visited the family’s home yesterday and as the rain continued to pour, Romero and her brother Antonio pointed to buckets placed along the floor to prevent the house from being flooded.

Antonio does not work, as he was injured in a car accident several years ago.

She said several weeks ago, she got assistance to place a piece of tarpaulin over the battered sheets of galvanise.

“That simple cover with that tarpaulin over for two weeks was like heaven because my father wasn’t getting wet, his pampers wasn’t getting wet, his wipes wasn’t getting wet, his coverlets wasn’t getting wet,” she said. “But because of the sun and the wind, the tarpaulin burst up.”

Once again, the Romeros are at the mercy of the rains.

Romero said she cannot sleep when it rains as she and Antonio take turns checking on her father to ensure he is not soaked on his bed.

“Little pieces of rusty galvanise falling from the roof, sometimes it falls on my father’s face, it does fall on his body,” she said.

She said she hopes that some good Samaritan will come forward to help ease the difficulties her family faces.

“I don’t want anything for myself, I make do with whatever little I have. Is just really hard to know he can’t move or help himself and he does be getting wet when he sleeping,” she said.

Anyone wishing to assist the family can contact Romero at 490-8681.