Fight Goes On Muslim Son Paralyzed Year After 9/11 To Go Home — Mom Resumes Struggle For Rights Of Persons With Disabilities

MCKINNEY, Texas Farhat Chishty hasn’t had a life of her own for the last five years.

And she fears that things will remain relatively the same as long as troubles with the state continue for her son who is mentally impaired.

She harbors these feelings despite a new deal for Haseeb that was agreed to with the agency that handles the living spaces for people with disabilities.

Their fight with the state bureaucracy has been over what many would consider mundane, yet they constitute the basic medical necessities in his life.

Acquiring a wheelchair for him, for example, took about 18 months of tenacity only a mother with professional experience working in the healthcare industry could endure.

But while Farhat’s spirit may seem without bounds, the quality of her well-being has gone down the tubes after the hell her family has endured.

She was forced to move into her younger son’s house in McKinney, Texas and be financially supported by the generosity of her immediate family.

The reason she can’t hold a steady job is that she administers care for Haseeb almost around the clock at the Denton State School, a state-run residence for people with mental retardation.

In 2002, the 34-year-old became the victim of brutal abuse and neglect at the hands of at least one known government-financed caretaker.

His stay at this institution in Denton County effectively turned him from a cheeseburger-loving semi-independent man into a full-blown paraplegic fed a liquid diet through a tube.

Hence, the wheelchair.

For a time, Haseeb’s breathing was aided with a respirator by way of a trachea tube.

This set-up may have seemed like a life-saving remedy, but hidden at the school were many dangers, including infections.

During their sessions with him, his caregivers who smoked cigarettes routinely failed to wash their hands or use gloves, according to Farhat.

“After three years of fighting, at least when we are there, they use gloves,” she told the Iconoclast on the five-year anniversary of her discovery of her son’s beating. “They don’t care about infection control protocol.”

By that second “they,” Farhat meant the entire system having to do with caring for people with disabilities in Texas.

At first, she bought into the hype that the Denton States School was top notch.

Now, had she known what the future held for her son, she said that she would have considered another alternative.

For the first 25 years of his life, Hasseb lived at home with his family. By his mother’s account, he was a happy-go-lucky free spirit who was physically healthy. He needed only be tended to for a few details.