A Brisbane mum who took her to the shops with her was crushed after the woman working at the checkout said her son “would be better off dead”.
Renee Duggan’s 12-year-old son, Andrew Duggan has profound cerebral palsy and claims he was the subject of the cruel taunt on the Easter weekend.
Ms Duggan took to social media to give her account of the incident and says the employee implied she had handicapped baby that had died and “it’s better that way”.
Describing her son as a “beautiful boy with a terrific personality and good intelligence” the horrified mum says she did manage to defend him.
“I replied by defending my son and saying he had a power wheelchair, he used a walking frame and had used computers,” Ms Duggan said.
Ms Duggan said that despite lodging a formal complaint over a week ago she and her husband, Howard have taken umbrage with the supermarket’s lack of response rather than the woman’s initial insensitive comments.
“As parents of disability we understand some people aren’t equipped to deal with gross disability,” Mr Duggan said.
The Queensland mum says her first complaint to the company seems to have disappeared but eventually an Aldi representative told the Duggans that the incident was being investigated.
The upset parents have since launched the Facebook page, Aldi, My Son Is Not ‘Better Off Dead’. Fix This And Learn From It. The page has garnered more than 1000 members in less than a week.
As part of the post Howard wrote: “I refuse to quietly be a victim of wilful corporate inertia and obfuscation.”
An Aldi Australia spokesman reportedly told The Courier Mail yesterday that the complaint was being taken “extremely seriously”.
