The Empty Stage: A Diabetes Advocate’s Painful Lesson in Exclusion

Salih Hendricks arrived at the Diabetes Summit in Johannesburg ready to share his story. For over four decades, he has lived with type 1 diabetes. He has lost a leg, survived a stroke, and battled blindness. But last week, he faced a barrier he never expected at an event designed for people like him: a flight of stairs.

The 59 year old advocate, a keynote speaker, found himself unable to reach the podium. The venue was not wheelchair accessible. And so, in a moment of profound irony, the man who came to speak about inclusion delivered his speech from the floor, his wheelchair parked in front of the empty stage.

A Symbol of Separation

“It’s not because it wasn’t tried,” Hendricks told the audience, graciously acknowledging the event organizer’s efforts. “But when you come to venues like this and realise they don’t accommodate people with disabilities, you feel that separation and exclusion.”

That separation is more than just physical. For Hendricks and millions of others living with disabilities caused by chronic illnesses, it is a message. It says, “You are an afterthought. Your presence is conditional.” To experience this at a summit dedicated to the very condition that cost him his leg was a particularly sharp blow.

“We talk about inclusion, but we are still not there,” Hendricks said. “Something as simple as access to a stage becomes a reminder that we’re still excluded, even in spaces meant for us.”

A Life Lived in Resilience

Hendricks’s journey began in 1982. His body has been a battlefield for 42 years, first with a rare form of diabetes and then with type 1. He knows the silent suffering he speaks of. He lived through a period of denial in the 90s that nearly cost him his eyesight.

“I was 17 years old when I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Diabetes is not easy; we suffer every day in silence,” he shared. “There are so many people who don’t speak out. I am here for every silent voice that cannot speak.”

His presence at the summit was meant to be a testament to survival. Instead, it became a stark illustration of the ongoing fight for dignity.

An Epidemic of Neglect

The statistics shared at the summit are alarming. An estimated four million South Africans live with diabetes, a silent epidemic that is the second leading cause of death among women. It is a crisis that officials acknowledge is fueled by preventable factors and places a crushing financial and emotional burden on families.

Deputy health minister Dr Joe Phaahla stated that diabetes can be prevented and managed. Yet, Hendricks’s story stands as a powerful testament to what happens when management fails and complications set in. His amputation in 2020 is not just a personal tragedy but a national health outcome that must be prevented.

Professor Ntobeko Ntusi, president of the South African Medical Research Council, called for home grown research and community based solutions. But what good are solutions if the people who need them most cannot access the rooms where they are discussed?

As the summit concluded, the image that remained was not of a new policy or a research breakthrough. It was of a man in a wheelchair, speaking with a lifetime of authority into a microphone, while the stage behind him stood empty. It was a powerful, unscripted keynote address on the one complication no one had planned for: the failure to see the whole person.

{Source: TimesLive}

Follow Joburg ETC on Facebook, Twitter , TikTok and Instagram

For more News in Johannesburg, visit joburgetc.com