Council ignoring rights of Disabled

rlawless

"An Open Letter to Galway City Council & the HSE."

My name is Richard Lawless. I have been a Galway City resident for almost all 36 years of my life. I am a healthy, educated and active member of the community and I am also physically disabled and a full time wheelchair user and as such am faced with a multitude of problems in daily life. The problems that disabled people in Galway face is not helped by an extreme lack of understanding. The disabled population of Galway are not being treated with the proper respect by the public authorities in the city. Disabled people do not have anyone to represent or highlight their problems.

Galway City council made a big deal a number of years ago about signing the Barcelona Declaration. Last year the Galway City Council has called on the Government to introduce Access Certificates which would make it compulsory for all new buildings to be disabled friendly. The City council need to take a step back and look at the state of the footpaths and how accessible some of these are. They certainly wouldn't be awarded one of these proposed Access Certificates for the city.

Last year I was travelling from the Galway shopping centre to my apartment on the Headford Road on my battery powered wheelchair Due to the fact that there was a 9 inch step on the footpath on the Kirwan roundabout, I was forced to travel on the road in my wheelchair. I was hit by a car when trying to negotiate the roundabout and I feel the total responsibility for this lies firmly on the shoulders of the Galway City Council. After this accident the footpath in question was torn up and replaced with a very steep ramp which is impossible to negotiate with a manual wheelchair. I do believe that Part M or the building Regulations applies to these public amenities.

There are many, many more examples of inaccessible footpaths around Galway city so I decided to take a few pictures and set up a meeting with the then Mayor of Galway City, Brian Walsh. I presented a slideshow to Mayor Walsh showing how many paths were totally inaccessible on a journey from my apartment into the city centre. I suggested that the city footpaths needed a full 'Audit' to identify where the problems where. I offered to help in any way. I was told by Mayor Walsh that he would bring the matter to the attention of the council members and the relevant department and the matter would be dealt with. I trusted Mayor Walsh but I'm afraid absolutely nothing has been done about the footpaths I brought to his attention and no one from the council has contacted me regarding my accident or my concerns about the accessibility of the city.

Now I want to turn my attention to the HSE and their lack of attention to people with disabilities.

I have two wheelchairs a power chair and a manual chair. My power chair is 12 years old and my manual chair is 3 years old. It is a fact that a wheelchair users needs changes over time and it is standard practice to change a wheelchair every two year. On Friday night I was going to the Connaught versus Harlequins game in the Sports Grounds on my manual wheelchair we were travelling up Sandy Road and the front wheel of my wheelchair snapped right off when it hit pothole in the footpath.

My manual wheelchair is currently giving me a lot of back pain as it doesn't support me sufficiently anymore. The story with my power chair is even worse, my seating position is in a proper upright position but there is no lateral support with the result that I frequently fall sideward.

As far as I know the only place for a wheelchair user to get any support in Galway regarding wheelchairs is the HSE Community Occupation Therapy Seating Clinic in Unit 10, Merlin Park. I have been trying for the last year to get an appointment at the seating clinic. When I ring I get through to either a secretary who takes my message or an answering machine. The only response I have ever received is a letter saying I would be sent out an appointment in 6 months time. I have received this letter many times in the last 9-12 months. I contacted the Seating Clinic myself at the beginning of this year and got another edition of the same letter two months later when I was referred to the seating clinic by an occupational therapist in the cardiac clinic. When I received the second letter I was quite upset and felt I was being ignored so I brought the letter to my GP. He wrote to them but there was no response. I then appealed to my district health nurse but so far she has received no reply either. This in no way to treat a person and as I'm told this is par for the course.

When I was studying first year law in NUIG Professor Gerard Quinn quoted Javier Perez de Cuellar, the Fifth Secretary-General of the United Nations to us, on many occasions "Let all bear in mind that a society is judged not so much by the standards attained by its more affluent and privileged members as by the quality of life which it is able to assure for its weakest members". Mahatma Ghandi said, "A nation's greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members". Churchill said that "you measure the degree of civilisation of a society by how it treats its weakest members". Pope John Paul II said "A society will be judged on the basis of how it treats its weakest members ..".

Galway City Council and the Western Health Board (HSE) could do well by listening to the words of these great people ... This city's greatness can certainly NOT be measured by the way it treats it's citizens.

Who represents the rights of disabled people on Galway City council and what qualifies them to do so?

po0k

Well said.

I'll be curious to see how onmi-accessible the new 'Marina' will be, and if the parking spaces are wide enough for the Maseratis, Mercs and Jags.

sgthighway

I was in Pearse Stadium recently where a man in a wheelchair in front of me complimented the facilities there. There was a designated parking spot outside (one of many), The gate was manned. The elevator was manned at the groung level and upper level. There was a man available to escort him to the viewing area in the stand (between the 2 x65s) and they were able to provide a chair for the man in the wheelchairs son.
The reason he harped on about it; The week before he was in Tuam Stadium and he had problems even getting in. They had to get the gate opened and drive in the car. There was nowhere to position/manover the wheelchair so they had to watch it from the car parked at one of the corners.

po0k

I suspect the extreme difference in elevation between road surfaces and footpaths are a form of misguided future-proofing to allow for numerous end-of-budget road-resurfacing splurges.

The other side of the coin is cars driving on footpaths.

rlawless

sgthighway wrote:

I was in Pearse Stadium recently where a man in a wheelchair in front of me complimented the facilities there. There was a designated parking spot outside (one of many), The gate was manned. The elevator was manned at the groung level and upper level. There was a man available to escort him to the viewing area in the stand (between the 2 x65s) and they were able to provide a chair for the man in the wheelchairs son.
The reason he harped on about it; The week before he was in Tuam Stadium and he had problems even getting in. They had to get the gate opened and drive in the car. There was nowhere to position/manover the wheelchair so they had to watch it from the car parked at one of the corners.

I agree. I have been to Pearse Staidum a few times and the facilities are excellent. Well done to everyone involved there.

rlawless

Declan Varley printed this etter in the Advertiser today.

Any comments anyone ?

rlawless

There has been progress on this issue.

Have a look at ;-

http://www.wheelchairfriendly.info/community/viewtopic.php?t=6

And please do leave your comments and ideas.