Hospitals are some of the most handicap INACCESSIBLE places on the planet.
I am new to occupational health but when I mention, in my mobility scooter on environmental rounds, how heavy doors slam on people in wheelchairs before they can get through to the restroom, how narrow stalls block ability to maneuver, and how the awful placement of some rails (not on each side, but for Pete’s sake on one wall and the BACK BEHIND THE TOILET), and how if you have a low toilet people who have had total hip replacements can’t use it, it’s noted, but Heaven only knows when the organization can free the money to fix some of it. They have tried; they just don’t understand why it’s an issue for people until they watch my attempts to use it.
Most hospitals are non profit. But, even the ritzy suburban hospitals and big university centers are poorly accessible from front door to bathroom.
My question is: Who designed this stuff in the first place and who told businesses that this was OK?
Someone had to tell them, someone had to draw up the guidelines for regulatory agencies. And then the company or nonprofit spent their resources thinking they had this done and done right. So of COURSE when they get complaints they think handicapped people are whining.
They don’t have the money to re-do it right much of the time, especially in economic downturns and especially for nonprofits. Now, private for profit corporations could probably cut the CEO’s perks enough to cover the cost, but what are nonprofits to do?
Someone at the federal level defined as OK structures that are obviously deficient. The doors that slam can probably be fixed more easily than anything with a loosening of hinges or hydraulics or installation of adjustable hydraulics so it stays open longer, and probably this will be fixed, but I have installed handicap rails in my own home and they are NOT easy to install- and the ones needed by companies are very expensive because they have to take more punishment than a home system does.
Still, for hospital construction, I can’t figure out why all doors aren’t automated with a manual pneumatic backup system as a baseline. If they want patients in the door, it makes sense to make it open to admit them without their having to have help. Yet in all my travels all over the US in different hospitals (military spouse, travel job), I have yet to see a hospital that truly is handicap accessible, regardless of size or population.
And those little elevators rarely if ever truly work. I laught at those. I have been a lot of places that have them and not one has ever worked anyplace I have been.
Mini commuter bus companies build in the cheapest possible lifts that don’t work very often because they’re operating on a narrow margin fiscally; little or no public funding and if fares are too high no one can afford to ride, so there’s not a lot of money there. Which means, often, the bus runs late as the operator attempts repeatedly to make the equipment work. Some drivers even lie about which direction the bus is going to avoid taking on a wheelchair – although they’ll all deny it for fear of losing their jobs, the lousy equipment means they are between a rock and a hard place: face firing from not keeping the timetable or for refusing a handicap passenger.
Mobility arms of public transport are generally unreliable especially for the wheelchair user. In our area, patients wait sometimes for 6 – 8 hours – and most of them look so sick as the time drags on. Most of their doctor appointment time is spent waiting for mobility transport. I know this is the case in many large cities and it can get worse outside of the city where there is often NOTHING available.
On the plus side there is a good example in Allegheny County in Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh area has something called Access and it works pretty well for tne non wheelchair user. I have no experience with wheelchair use but I’d bet some folks on the blog list live there and could comment.
I think federal regulators need to be forced to sit in wheelchairs and not use full strength to get in and out of their own creations mandated as adequate in public places all over the US. If they were, the rails would be in better positions; doors would be automated; lifts would work regardless of cost. Because once the rich are inconvenienced, things change. Not until. And only when rich politicians have to deal with what it means to be handicapped WITHOUT an entourage helping, will they loosen federal purse strings to assist nonprofits to make areas more accessible and fund grants to help small businesses correct things that they made in good faith but which do not work for the disabled.
And please, I know people want to call it differently abled and disability accessible, but let’s not worry about semantics. Let’s make our lawmakers fix this.