Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1053035
19 LETTERS & EDITORIAL maltatoday | SUNDAY • 18 NOVEMBER 2018 Abuse of police power at Mater Dei ON Friday, 9 November at around 10am, I drove up to the Mater Dei Hospital's main entrance and stopped in the little enclave closest to the en- trance, leaving my mother with a vis- ible full leg in cast in the car, to go inside to fetch a wheelchair and 'unload' her – as she was otherwise immobile – and go park. A policeman in uniform standing outside the hospital immediately told me I could not leave my car there, and in agreement I showed him my mother's ID card and advised him that I only needed a wheelchair to get her out so that I could go and park. At this juncture he said nothing more of it. Inside Mater Dei I asked for a wheel- chair and was directed to a station for the purpose located on the left-hand side, but at which there was no atten- dant. Knowing there was an anxious policeman outside I asked everyone who passed by me in hospital uniform for assistance so I could be on my way. I was repeatedly told that only the 'porter' could help me, who was nowhere to be seen and of whom there was only one. Learning that only one person was authorised to give out wheelchairs at Malta's main hospital when such per- son also has other duties that require him/her to be away from the station for stretches of time is evidently a huge deficiency in itself. After five minutes, I see the police- man in uniform from outside storming in towards me with the same demean- our as though he had just been alerted to the location of a known and wanted criminal. He raised his voice at me, barking for me to remove my car at once. There was not a shred of reason, rationality, humanity or compassion in this figure who stood raging before me. I told him that I still needed a wheelchair to get my mother out of the car and that as he could see there was no one at the desk who could help me. His manner towards me worsened and making a terrible scene he pro- ceeded to inform me that he was a policeman and that in such capacity he was "ordering" me to go with him out- side and drive off. I repeated the obvious by telling him again that my mother could not walk and that I needed a wheelchair before I could move my car, to get her safely into hospital, to her appointment. His reaction to this was to threaten me. By now fully thundering at me, brandishing his arms about and draw- ing all sorts of attention, he threatened to report me, and then came the ulti- mate threat: to bring me before a mag- istrate. I am a lawyer by profession and while in that moment I deemed fit not to mention this fact, I secretly wished for there to really have been a magis- trate present to give this impertinent man disgracing his uniform a useful lecture on all that was abhorrently wrong with his behaviour. Instead I asked him for a solution and he continued to threaten me and to forcibly evict me out of a public place, impeding me from getting a wheelchair and making it virtually im- possible for me to get my mother safely out of the car. He would not listen, he would not reason, he simply did not care. He was lost in a furore of authori- tative narcissism the likes of which spelt danger in hard cold characters. It became a farce on the brink of tragedy. We might as well have been two actors on a stage depicting dys- topia but alas, it was real life, Malta, Mater Dei hospital, by now around 10.15am. As I was leaving he informed me, as an afterthought, that he had indeed decided to report me. Helpless and incredulous I was forced to drive off, scared to make a round and return to the same spot for fear of being arrested and simply exasperated as he had left me lost for words and in a terrible state as without a wheelchair there was simply no way I could transport my mother into the hospital for her ap- pointment. As said by Margaret Atwood, 'con- text is all'. Think about it. We were not at the theatre, nor at a Palace exhibit. We were at Mater Dei Hospital, where people go because there is injury, sick- ness, pain, suffering or a combination of the above. With this comes emo- tional vulnerability, unease, worry, concern, stress and anxiety for those whose loved ones have been somehow afflicted. This is true even to a child who has barely learnt to speak. How then, does a policeman who took an oath to defend and protect the citizens of his country, have so perfected the art of doing the precise opposite, and with such gusto? He humiliated me, stripped me of my dignity and my right to go about my own business – he reported me – for trying to explain that I needed a wheelchair and could not leave with- out one- and instead of using his au- thority to help me get the wheelchair I needed (of which there were tens be- fore us but no one to register the paper work for one to be given) he instead chose to use his badge and uniform to bully, threaten and ostracise a person going about their daily grief. He should be made to apologise, in private and in public. He should be severely reprimanded, humbled and made to feel ashamed of himself for abusing of his powers in such pathetic and monstrous ways. But what 'teeth' do these provisions truly have in practice? Reason suggests that people would not act in certain ways unless they knew they can get away with it, and that is a generous source of the trouble of our times. Dr Marilyn Formosa Mikiel Galea Letters & Clarifications