Saturday 16 July 2011

The joys of disabled access

Last Thursday I had to go to a private doctors for an insurance claim, now I presumed that since private doctors earn the big bucks the building it was in would be light, airy and modern and as a result almost flat. It wasn't, instead there was a single door, some steps and a sign saying ring bell for ramp. Now the moment I saw the sign I had a bad feeling this was compounded by the fact that the receptionist who came out asked me if I was waiting for the ramp! No I was just waiting for my wheelchair to start levitating itself up the steps! Then she fetched the "ramp" I'm using quotations marks because what it actually was was a bit of wood. When my mum went to straighten it she just kept saying it would be fine, nope wrong again, first of all I couldn't have got up it on my own as even my mum couldn't manage it, instead a nice couple wondering by offered to help. So by this point the wife and my mum are holding the "ramp" and the husband is attempting to push me up (I say attempting as the first time one of my wheels went off the edge of the ramp) once we reached the top there was the next problem, there was a small drop after the top of the ramp, now the nice man pushing me did very well but I hate the sensation of dropping and feeling like I'm about to fall out of my chair. All in all I felt like I'd taken several years off my life. When we got in we were allowed into the doctors straight away even though we were early  and when we told the doctor about the issues we had all he said was that it met disability access requirements. If I was in charge of these requirements it wouldn't have. Which for me raises questions why aren't disabled people in charge of disabled access to all public areas, you can tell we aren't as if we were all portable ramps would be like the ones the trains use. Also hand dryers wouldn't be right next to toilet while the paper holder is out of reach, you could get most people off incapacity benefit by getting them to test out disabled toilets and whether ramps are too steep. Maybe I should send an email to Mr Cameron.
Thanks for reading
DMU_girl

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