A GRIM picture of life on Bolton's sprawing housing estates will be revealed to health leaders next week.
Drugs, crime and poverty is causing distress and ill health. Children, adults and pensioners have given their blunt views of Bolton in a unique survey. Gayle Evans reports
IDO a paper round, then I get breakfast for my brother. Then I go to school and afterwards do my homework.
"At six, I get tea for my mum and brother and then I clean up and go to work in the corner shop. My mum has a bad back."
This is the voice of a young boy in Bolton. He talks of having two jobs, looking after his sick mother and cooking and cleaning the house.
No, it is not Victorian Britain. Instead, it is Bolton in 2002.
A place where drug abuse, crime and poverty blights the lives and health of people in cash-strapped communities.
Some are bitterly aware that a mile down the road, their wealthier neighbours are living 10 years longer.
Health leaders are being urged to sit up and listen to the blunt views of more than 1,000 residents in Bolton. They are also the views of doctors, nurses and social workers, all revealed in a grim report of day-to-day life in the town.
The survey, which goes before Bolton's Primary Care Trust next week, reveals how people cannot afford new glasses, struggle to find a dentist who treats people on benefits and cannot even afford to travel to keep appointments at the Royal Bolton Hospital.
Many people fear burglary and violence. They want an end to drugs abuse and worry about their children being bullied and drinking alcohol.
Public Health specialist and chairman of the Health Topic Group, Debs Harkins, set up the in-depth survey to find out the health needs of residents living in Breightmet, Tonge Moor, Tonge Fold, Hall i'th' Wood, The Haulgh and Darcy Lever -- part of the East Bolton Regeneration.
What it revealed was a catalogue of loneliness, boredom, abuse and low self-esteem.
As a result, adults report a range of physical health problems including asthma, drug-related problems, anaemia, epilepsy, being overweight, diabetes, cancer, sight problems and dental trouble.
Children suffer bedwetting, bullying at school, low immunisation rates and behavoural problems.
Pensioners were lonely, suffering dementia and living with painful osteoporosis.
Mrs Harkins, of the Bolton PCT, said: "We would like funding to address these issues. The results of the survey were surprising, especially comments from the children who complained about the same sort of problems as adults.
"Children were fed up of living in bad housing and many children wrote that they just wanted peace and quiet."
One little boy revealed how he had two jobs, cooked and cleaned the house and looked after his sick mum and brother.
One teenager said: "I feel sad. It doesn't look like I'll do anything with my life. I'm drinking all the time. We go out in the afternoon and sit on walls. My mates aren't doing anything with themselves either, they're not happy."
A drug user said: "Doctors don't take me seriously -- I get treated like a scumbag who robs old ladies. No-one will give me support."
Another drug addict was quoted: "I saw a four year old child on the bus with her dad. I recognized the dad as a user and knew that the mum was also an addict. The child said to her dad 'Dad, you know that yellow flower in the garden this morning -- have you sold it yet'? The dad sold anything and everything to raise money for drugs." Some residents called for the setting up of a brothel to get prostitution off the streets. Some asked for a detox centre for drug addicts while others complained that they had to wait for a methadone programme to get them off heroin.
Community spirit was listed as good, with one resident saying: "On the whole, it's brilliant, people will look out for the kids."
A single parent said: "I walk into town. It's 45 minutes with a two and a half-year-old, a 10-month-old and a three-year-old. I carry the kids and it does my back in."
Many want a greater police presence and CCTV cameras, exciting play areas for children and a project to improve housing.
Many of these recommendations are being adopted, except the brothel, in a long list of action which has already attracted £1 million government funding.
These include a mobile men's health unit, a health and minor injuries clinic, a community gym, increased role and bigger budget for community nurses, healthy food projects, better mental health access and more facilities for drug users.
Health leaders will debate the findings at the next meeting of the Primary Care Trust on Wednesday at 2pm at Bolton town hall where they will be asked to contribute up to £2 million towards improving health in these districts.
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