Useless adaptation?

milo

Last night I was on my way home when I decided to get petrol. Being wheelchair bound, I normally use a local station where beeping my horn results in a helpful staff member arriving to fill the tank for me.  Last night however,  I was several miles away so I stopped at Asda. Now their petrol is cheap because they have unmanned petrol stations but I'd been told some time ago that they had a system for the disabled to request assistance. 

They do,  it's a call button on a pillar that is unreachable from the car.  I don't know if this very fundamental flaw is deliberate or merely an oversight,  I've emailed Asda to ask exactly that but had no reply as of yet... 

It made me wonder if other members of this forum have similar tales of all but useless adaptations? 

Oh in case you're wondering, I had enough fuel to get home and stop en route at the local garage to beep once again. 

Geo08

I would certainly write to ASDA and explain the problem. Surely it would be just as easy to set up a phone number for you to call instead? Surely thats where the push button connects to?

In terms of tales I went to a Wagamama in Leeds that had disabled access which had step. Mind boggling. Fortunately there is one in the trinity centre which is very close by so we wemt there instead.

Blue Frog

  perfect example of someone trying to make things accessible but failing epically.

@Geo08 is right, speak to them about it - @Zeezee and I mithered ASDA for months and they got special trolleys our kids fit in - so def worth a try. Or get a very big stick to press the button with 

milo

I've emailed the asda head office about it, as of yet I've had no reply but I'm not going to let it go until I get a response. Will keep you all posted. 

snapcare

I recommend sending Asda a tweet, they seem on board to make the right changes and it is helpful to ask publicly... 

WomanOnWheels

Thinking about supermarkets does anyone else have a problem using 'accessible' trolleys? I use a powerchair and only 1 supermarket in my area has a trolley I can use. 

milo

@WomanOnWheels I use a lightweight rigid manual chair and none of the trolleys fit,  so I either have to balance a basket on my knees or get someone to push a trolley for me. 

bam

Are you talking about those electronic carts?I really love those electronic carts. Sometimes I'll do my shopping before I pick up my medication at 8 a.m. . No one is in the store and I get into those electronic carts. I just go around  the boxes of stuff they have in the aisles that they're trying to put on the shelves. At first I was a little embarrassed to use those catrs. When I get in those carts sometimes people will stare at me. But those electronic parts are a lifesaver for me because the store is just too big and I have MS

howautisticfeels

I use a cane rather than a wheelchair to get around, but have had to struggle moving things using a trolley. 

My old flat's lift block had a heavy fire door. No way anyone in a chair could have opened it at the same time as wheeling backwards, unless their power chair was part Land Rover or something.

To make it worse, the door was fob entry, and the fob swipe panel to unlock it was 90 degrees around the lift block. One would have to swipe the fob, wheel uphill over gappy slabs, grab the door handle & back up one-handed, then somehow wheel through the quickly closing and heavy door before it shut and the fob swipe timed out. 

Council block of flats, unsurprisingly.

milo

@howautisticfeels that's a good example of how things are made difficult for those with mobility issues. I don't suppose any of it was deliberate but with a bit more thought it could have been much more manageable. Have to say that uneven paving is my particular pet hate having been tipped out of my chair more than once. 

RogueSocPsych

https://psychtld.wordpress.com/2010/11/20/“are-you-being-served”-experiences-of-a-trained-autism-specialist-professional-with-an-autistic-spectrum-diagnosis/

The above article details just one aspect of how my case was mis-handled by a supposedly autism-specialist organisation in Finland. It appears that having a postgraduate qualification in one's own disability area is no match for someone whose thesis for her Bachelor of Applied Social Studies degree was on 4yo children with Down syndrome (which - oddly enough - how she treated a then-40-odd year old me).

It took from 1999 to 2012 to get an actual assistant - but still no resources were made available to help to improve my situation; the local authority terminated this arrangement without notice in about 2013-2014 (I'm not actually sure when but that's because no actual notice was given!). Only in the past two months has any such arrangement been reinstated and I had to threaten legal action to get even that.

When you read this:
http://stm.fi/en/disability-services

... it is easy to get the impression that FInland is on top of its game.

It's not.

1- The Disability Services Act 380/1987 actually specifies time limits on LAs to act when a request is received. There is not a single sanction available to the disabled client for when (not 'if') the LA ignores the request. More on this in a bit.

2- The list of things they say are available - only two things have been offered, and that is after having had to bombard the authorities with emails and letters and phone calls. The assistant thing has been good for making sure I don't drown but treading water isn't swimming. The rehabilitative work activity they talk of... oh, boy - I have to write about what that is sometime. Suffice to say that - at no point on any rehabilitative work activity were my professioinal skills (the ones I learned at university) even considered let alone used.

Finland sucks at disability support. But, when you tell Finland that, it ignores you.

Regarding requests for assessment and support under Act 380/1987, this is what has happened to me:

Request goes in. Nothing is heard from LA. Meanwhile, LA enacts a de facto but not de jure) decision. Decision is to do nothing. When a decision is made, the law requires that the decision-maker give a written decision, with an address to which any appeal aginst the decision can be sent. This is whether or not the decision is negative. Every request I've sent or had given on my behalf by my then-wife has been ignored.

There are three things that a local authority might do:

1- See the need for assessment and support, decised they want to help, make a positive decision, and write to the client with a decision and an appeal address.

2- See no need for an assessment or support, decide not to intervene, and send a written decision to the client, with an appeal adddress - knowing that the appeal with be torned down by the administrative court.

3- See a need for assessment and support but decide they will refuse to help; they then refuse to write to the client with a formal negative decision, thereby denying the client the right of appeal (which makes this a human rights abuse issue), because they know that an appeal lodged with the administrative court would lead to their negative decision being overturned by the court.

Guess what has happened to me for over seventeen years.

This means that continuous disability support needs have not been formally assessed by the LA, and that trying to get continuous disability support needs met has been left to discretionary decisions from the LA. This is not how one runs a disability support service.

It's how the Finnish run theirs.

WomanOnWheels

@bam I used to use those carts too, so useful. I find I'm not able to use them easily now so have to use a basket on my knee or if possible a trolley that fits onto my chair. 

WomanOnWheels

@milo Maybe someone should start a campaign to encourage supermarkets to invest in more than one type of wheelchair accessible trolley.

milo

@WomanOnWheels not a bad idea.  Front if my chair is too narrow for the standard wheelchair trolleys, so I'd presume parents would find that they don't fit a child's wheelchair either. 

WomanOnWheels

@milo my guess is this is a problem for more people than just us & sometimes online shopping just won't do! I'll get on the case!

bam

I live in California in the United States. California has a compassionate use of marijuana law. I have MS and because of my MS I have problems walking. I went to this medical marijuana dispensary and it was on the top floor of this building and the building didn't have any elevator. You had to walk up four flights of stairs to get to this medical marijuana dispensary. If you're sick enough and physically disabled enough why would a medical marijuana dispensary be on the top floor of a building without an elevator. We're supposed to walk up four flights of stairs to get to the dispensary. I thought it was funny but I decided to go just to see if this place was worth walking up four flights of stairs and it wasn't

WomanOnWheels

@bam that's ridiculous! The providers of services like that really should think a bit about those who use the service!

milo

@WomanOnWheels terrific. Might be worth spreading the word far and wide to see what response comes back. 

bam

@WomanOnWheels I hope I'm doing this right. I can understand how difficult  it must be to have to put that basket on your lap. I'm just so grateful I can use those electronic cards because it's just too difficult walking from one end of the store the other end with my MS. I wish all of the stores had them. The store I go to only has two. Sometimes I have to wait for one to be available to do my shopping

WomanOnWheels

@bam it's frustrating to have to wait. Not all supermarkets provide seats while you're waiting either. If you often have to wait perhaps the store manager would be up for getting another one, it's well worth asking. 

milo

@WomanOnWheels @bam I think that businesses  are much more aware of accessibility issues than they were even a few years ago, having said that there is still room for significant improvement.