In her own words Eileen was given her life back when she moved in to one of Habinteg's specially designed flats for wheelchair users.
Her life has changed so much since she left the tiny hospital room that had been her home for two decades. Eileen can only move around using a large wheelchair that she guides with a joystick. The front door swings open at the touch of a button on the remote control device hung around her neck.
Of her 20-year confinement Eileen says
"there were some people who just lay there and gave up, but I couldn't afford to do that. I often say I could have committed murder and got a shorter sentence!"
In hospital, her room was so small she was unable to even turn her chair around inside it, her family had to drive several hours to visit her and when she left her personal belongings amounted to an eggcup and a teaspoon. Last year she was able to spend Christmas at home with her sister for the first time in 20 years.
After 20 years cut off from the community, Eileen was determined not to be isolated again.
"I didn't want to live on an all-disabled estate. I wasn't going to be put in a little niche because I'm in this"
, she says, pointing to her wheelchair.
"I didn't want to be set apart from the rest of the people who live here. By keeping disabled people away from non-disabled, people are just going to keep their ignorance. But after a while all living together in the same community, you don't see the disability, you see the person."
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