Woman in wheelchair offered new job with more pay but says:
No thanks, cab fares will wipe out pay rise
A NEW job with a 40 per cent pay rise - most people would have jumped at the offer. But Miss Edna Tan opted to stick to her current job.
The 36-year-old receptionist was afraid that if she took on the higher-paying job, she could end up spending most of her pay increment on transport.
Miss Tan is wheelchair-bound and depends on the Handicaps Welfare Association's (HWA) transport service to travel between her Bedok North home and her workplace at a cosmetics distribution company at Kaki Bukit.
The new job required her to work in Bukit Timah, a location for which she could not use the HWA transport service.
She said: 'If I take a cab to Bukit Timah daily, I could end up spending up to $400 a month on taxi fares.'
She pays $60 a month for HWA's transport service now.
She is among the 450 regular users. HWA has 14 vans, all specially retrofitted with wheelchair-friendly features such as hydraulic wheelchair lifts. The service has a waiting list of about 20 clients.
For Miss Tan, who has multiple sclerosis, the service is a god-send.
Before she got her current job in September last year, she was was jobless for five years.
She was first diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at 19 when she felt numbness in her feet and fingertips.
Multiple sclerosis damages the central nervous system and can affect anything from visual and motor functions to co-ordination and balance.
She received monthly treatments at the Tan Tock Seng Hospital for a year, which kept her condition in check.
Then, she was still able to walk and worked as a secretary. Two years later, she quit after suffering a relapse.
At 21, she took up a part-time diploma in computer skills and worked as a part-time tuition teacher.
Then, at 25, she joined as a receptionist and administrative assistant at a polytechnic.
RELAPSES
But over the next five years, her condition deteriorated. She suffered three relapses and had to be hospitalised each time.
She said: 'My legs felt more numb and it came to the point where I couldn't even walk to the bathroom without help.'
At 30, she quit her job again.
She sought treatment at the Ang Mo Kio Community Hospital for a month, but there was little improvement.
She had to use crutches and, eventually, a wheelchair. For the next four years, she was unemployed.
'It was a difficult time. I was hoping to get better so that I could work again, but things were only getting worse.
'I felt helpless and the boredom of staying home all day became hard to handle. Every day, I get up, read the papers, eat and sleep.'
She lives with her 68-year-old mother, a part-time bus attendant, who earns $400 a month. She has three older siblings who support them financially.
In 2005, she decided to snap out of her depression and look for a job. But her applications to 10 companies were rejected.
Last September, she saw an article in HWA's newsletter about an upcoming job fair. That was how she found her current job.
These days, HWA's transport service picks her up from home at 8am and takes her home at 6pm every day.
Earlier this year, Miss Tan was offered a similar job paying her $1,300 - some $400 more than her current salary - at Bukit Timah. But she refused the offer.
'What's the point of taking up a higher-paying job when the pay increment is going to be spent on taxi fare?
'HWA's transport service has saved me a lot of money. At least I don't have to spend a chunk of my pay getting to and from work.'
source:
http://newpaper.asia1.com.sg/news/st...44356,00.html? 
