Tag: Accessibility

To the people.

On By Katy DalyIn Blog2 Comments

To the elderly people who wouldn’t move out of the wheelchair space on the bus, for me a wheelchair user. I would feel bad for swearing at you if you didn’t wave as the bus drove away.

To the bus driver, who tried to get them to move but gave in and just wouldn’t let me on the bus, grow a backbone and enforce the rules, that’s part of your job.

To the person reading this, who thinks I was too harsh, while I admit I acted in emotion and not logic, being older doesn’t make you right or deserving of special treatment.

To the person who doesn’t understand why this made me so upset, in part it’s just because it was yet another thing today, but missing this bus has also ruined my plans for the day. It’s pushed me back at least an hour due to connecting buses.

To the people who aren’t reliant on public transport, driving isn’t so easy for me, both physically and financially, that is to say if I could do it all. Access to public transport is not only my freedom, but my right.

The bus has been reported, not that I think it’ll actually do any good. And I’m now sat here waiting for the next one, hoping it comes in time to not delay the next part of my journey, that is of course, if I can get on it at all.

The rules of needing help:

On By Katy DalyIn My Disability Truth1 Comment

The rules of needing help are as follows:

  1. Always be grateful. 
  2. It’s on there terms not yours. 
  3. Say please and thank you for every little thing. 
  4. Remember as much as you possibly can about the things you need help with all at once. 
  5. Always be grateful. 

No one talks about the rules of needing help, they only seem to exist when you need a lot of it. That help is almost always given on the condition of those giving it, they’re doing something for you after all. If you’re lucky they’ll ask you specifically about the type of help you want, exactly where or how you want something doing. You basically have to be a god to have a say in when you get it done. You don’t get something done how you want and when you want it for free, being unable to do it yourself doesn’t matter. 

Did you know that bigger tasks are comprised of a lot of smaller tasks? Sure you want that moving, but you also need to know what you going to do with the other thing you need to move out of the way to put it where you want. They’ll have to move that as well, and deal with the rubbish. Get ready to be thankful for each individual step. 

Even if it’s there job, to do the same things they’ve been coming to do daily, watch they don’t randomly want a thank you out of nowhere to make themselves feel good. Give it anyway, just in case. I know this sounds a little extra, but think about needing help for a lot of things and having to thank someone every time, I promise you it gets old fast. It’s not that I’m not grateful, it’s that everything becomes something someone else is doing for me I remind them of it, my existence becomes about others helping me. 

On that note, remembering that others are helping me, means I go out of my way to try and remember all the things I need help with at once. This makes it easier for them to help me, and makes sure I get all the help I need. But if I’m honest with myself it’s more about the first part than the second part. No asking someone for something when they’ve just sat down, even if that’s when you remember. Side note though, don’t ask them for to much, then you’re just being to needy, it’s up to you to find the right balance there. 

And lastly, again, always be grateful. No one wants to help people that are ungrateful, and when you need a lot of help you have to be nice enough so people want to do it. You’re the one that suffers if they don’t, if they just decide to say no. Don’t risk it. 

My last concert

On By Katy DalyIn BlogLeave a comment

Almost a week I attended what will be my last concert, and it has taken me a week to fund the strength to write about it, due to just how automatic the experience was.

Music is a freeing experience for me, it is one of few places in this world where i do not feel constricted by my disability, where I do not feel disabled. But concerts often have the reverse effect, and they really did this time.

I went to a Dean Lewis concert, and I suppose as final concerts go it was a good way to finish a bad run. I made the mistake of going back to a venue I already knew was inaccessible to me, by this I mean that although the venue was technically wheelchair accessible, I knew the view it would provide me with wasn’t. Contrary to popular belief just because the venue in wheelchair accessible, doesn’t actually mean it will provide an accessible view to wheelchair users.

I was told previously that I would be able to go on the main floor when visiting that venue again, after my first very poor experience of it. However, when I went this time, I was told this was not possible due to there being no risk assessment of a wheelchair user being on the main floor. I found this confusing as I can’t really understand why I would have been previously given permission to do something that I was never going to be able to do due to lack of risk assessment.

I also don’t really understand why I’m more of a risk in a crowd full of people than the drunk people in that crowd are. Of the many concerts I’ve been to at this point, I’ve never once been the person that needed help of any kind. It isn’t about my safety. It is about the venues, fear of being sued. I argue that I in fact more safe to be in that crowd than many other people, once I’m in it, I do not move. And surely the people within the crowd have some responsibility for their own safety, is it not their job to ensure that they are not injured by someone in a still and unmoving wheelchair?

We really need to move past the idea of the accessibility for disabled people is just getting them into the building, that’s it’s just taking a box to say we tried. In some ways this is where the legal requirement for accessibility hold us back. People don’t actually consider the accessibility of a venue as long as it meets these legal requirements and the legal requirements are outdated and basic.

I cannot put myself through this again, I’m scared if I keep trying it’ll ruin music for me. Music saved my life. I’ll take a lot of it that’s freeing, over a little more of it that’s debilitating.

Disabled people deserve fun. And I’m tired of that being an argument. I’m tired of nice excuses, and lovely people not be able to do anything about it, and feeling bad. But nothing changes because no one sees that it should.

I just want to dance.

The venue was – The Victoria Warehouse,

Sometimes disabled people need to travel together.

On By Katy DalyIn BlogLeave a comment

But unfortunately, public transport is rarely built for us to do this. And neither our taxis, in reality.

The truth is society doesn’t really seem to want disabled people to travel anywhere, never mind together. but sometimes we’ve got to do what we’ve go to do just like everybody else sometimes travelling with the disabled people.

It’s funny, in that way that’s not funny, that I’m here justifying travelling as a necessity, because doing any thing for fun is just unthinkable as a disabled person.

But public transport really needs to be accommodating of more than one visibly disabled person at a time. Can you image if it only accommodated one (visibly) non-disabled person at a time? Society would all be mad and be saying it’s a waste of money, but when it’s disabled people it’s justifiable.

To make matters worse society often pushes disabled people together, especially when we’re young, they believe we should all be friends. And maybe that’s because they don’t want us to be friend with non-disabled people, but they don’t want to feel guilty for us having no friends.

I don’t know if this is true, but it is something I’ve always believed. I’ve definitely had non-disabled people introduce me to disabled people with the assumption that we’re going to be friends just because we’re both disabled.

And then they create a society that’s not designed to have us in it together. Which honestly makes no sense.

Can we not give advice to people that didn’t ask for any?

On By Katy DalyIn Blog, My Disability TruthLeave a comment

I don’t understand why people do it. That’s a lie I do understand it. I just don’t like it.

Today someone gave me “advice” that I didn’t ask for, and it’s less what they said and more the implications that came with what they said.

I was travelling with someone else who need some assistance to walk independently. This could not be achieved safely on the pavements, due to the uneven nature of the pavements, and so it was safer for us to be in the road.

But someone decided to pull up and inform me that doing this was dangerous. The way you would tell a child not to walk in the road, or play in the street as they say.

Firstly I am an adult. I am cable of keeping myself, and the person I was with, safe. You wouldn’t assume a non- disabled person wasn’t able to do this, so why are you assuming this of a disabled person?

Secondly, if you see a disabled person doing something you don’t understand, don’t immediately assume they’re doing it wrong. A lot of disabled people learn how to do things safely, but differently to how you might consider something should be done. You’d be better of assuming that they just know what they’re doing unless you are sure they aren’t.

I promise you, no disabled person, and especially no wheelchair user, is going in the road for fun. Pavements are a lot less accessible than you might realise.

I promise I know how to exist in an inaccessible world as a disabled person. I’ve been doing it long enough.

Your advice isn’t needed or wanted, and is frankly very insulting.

Concert equality example

On By Katy DalyIn Blog2 Comments

Why is it not fair to assume that those that need accessibility seats at concerts have the same chance of getting tickets for a show than those that don’t. The answer is it’s simply not true.

On top of the fact that disabled people, who need accessibility seats, are massively limited in where they can sit in a venue and they can only go with one person. Is the fact that there isn’t as many tickets available to them as non-disabled people. In fact the numbers are dramatically different, I’ve worked out an example to show you.

I did some rough maths (I can’t do the actual figures because of course they hide them) to show you just have few accessible seats there are at the AO Arena as one example.

They’re 4 blocks in the ao arena which have accessible seating. There’s roughly 650 seats per block. I took one block and then rounded down as they’re are smaller blocks. So if every seat in the AO arenas 4 blocks was accessible, which it clearly isn’t they’d be 2600 seats for disabled people. To match the roughly 20% of disabled people in society (the figures actually 24% of people are disabled but not everyone’s going to go to a concert) this means to match the capacity of the arena they’re should be 4600 accessible seats. Split across the blocks they’re should be 13 blocks of completely accessible seating. And if you think there’s ever that you never been to a music venue. Usually maybe 30 seats in a block are accessible split across the 4 blocks that’s 120 seats because I guessed let’s say 200 give them the benefit of the doubt. Still nowhere near the 4600 there should be.

And yes I know it’s not perfect. They hide the figures so disabled people don’t have exact numbers to prove to you all how unfair it actually is. And not all disabled people are going to need access tickets. But even with these rough figures the AO arena has less than 5% of the amount of accessible tickets it should have to reflect the percentage of disabled people in society.

Having us in the room is not equality, it is not the equity we deserve. We deserve to have the same number of tickets available to us as non-disabled people do. We deserve to have fun, we deserve to have friends, we deserve to have fun with our friends.

An accessible one.

On By Katy DalyIn Writing PromptsLeave a comment

What does your ideal home look like?

Honestly, this is this is the reality of being disabled for a lot of people. Most of us want what non-disabled people have and take for granted. A home that I can live in which is completely accessible to me.

An open-planned home, with flexible furniture. And all the accessibility equipment I need through out.

I miss swimming

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I used to do a lot of hydrotherapy as a child but of course it’s only paid for when you’re a child so I haven’t been able to go in 10 years. But I loved being in the water, and I miss it so much.

Swimming or simply being in the water is something everyone should get to enjoy and pools being accessible is a big part of this. All pools should be as accessible as possible to everyone. And it should be common sense that any equipment needed to make them this way should also be functioning.

Image Description: A Facebook Screenshot from a post by Misa On Wheels. The post shows a picture of a pool hoist over a pool. The text above the picture reads “Accessibility PSA – Having a pool lift is only useful if it is not perpetually out of order.”

Family was in the hospital.

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So obviously while someone was in the hospital I wasn’t focused on this blog. I basically came home and slept then went out very quickly again. So I’m going to do some backdated posts to get me back on track.

Image Description: The image is a figure in a wheelchair with their leg in a cast, the text reads: “Disabled  people deserve the same access that non-disabled people currently have.”