From CNN ‘Heroes’:

Brad Blauser came to Iraq as a civilian contractor in 2004, but quit that job to devote himself fulltime to distributing free wheelchairs to Iraqi kids.

So far, his Wheelchairs for Iraqi Kids has distributed nearly 650 free pediatric wheelchairs. He works without compensation.

UNICEF estimates that one in seven Iraqi children aged 2 to 14 lives with a disability. Blauser says his group is the only source of pediatric wheelchairs in the country.

“By providing what they need, I’m hoping to start a movement to change the way people think about disabled children,” said Blauser. “They are not a curse, they are a blessing and they deserve to have their needs met.”

See also:

• Texas Man Gives Help to Iraqi Children — My Fox Atlanta (with video)
• Disabled Iraqi children get wheelchairs, big smiles — CNN

(CNN photo courtesy of Brad Hauser)

From CNN:

Debbie Brown, a Sacramento woman, has been using a no-frills wheelchair provided by Medicare at a cost to taxpayers of about $1,200.

CNN went to Apria Healthcare, the same company that charges Medicare for the rental of Brown’s wheelchair, and paid cash for a comparable model. The cost: $349, or about a fourth of what taxpayers have paid to rent a chair for Brown.

Brown says taxpayers should be outraged.

From the [Salt Lake City] Deseret News:

Forty members of the disability rights advocacy group ADAPT have been blocking the Democratic Party’s national headquarters in Washington, seeking support for the Community Choice Act. Other members of the group have been staging protests in state Democratic Party headquarters around the country.

The measure would allow people with disabilities who are receiving Medicaid benefits the ability to choose between nursing home care and long-term support services in the community.

See also: Obama backs helping hand for long-term care — NPR/Kaiser Health News

Sandy Lahmann, who uses a wheelchair, writes in the [Frisco, CO] Summit Daily News that people’s tendency to view disability as a medical problem is just plain wrong.

… Disability is a social and political problem. It’s not my medical status as a person with a disability that holds me back or gets in my way. It’s my social and political status as a person with a disability that holds me back and gets in my way.

The biggest problems for myself and other people with disabilities include difficulty obtaining meaningful employment despite having education and skills, being stuck as a result with an income below poverty level, difficulty accessing transportation services, and prejudicial attitudes.

The way I am treated by other people is a much bigger issue than my medical status.

(Summit Daily News photo)

‘Help for the handicapped can be a way of helping everyone’

From the Economist:

Mexico City’s main international airport has hired some 60 bilingual workers in wheelchairs to greet visitors. “They’re professional, attentive, always in a good mood, and never miss work,” says Héctor Velázquez, the airport’s director.

The example of the airport is rare among employers in Mexico, where the employment rate for people with disabilities is less than half that of the rest of society. In the public sector just 0.4% of workers have disabilities, according to the National Council for People with Disabilities.

From the StoryCorps oral history project on National Public Radio:

Ricky Boone, a magician and owner of a magic shop in Asheville, NC, tells his friend Patty Barber about the teacher who transformed his life.

Boone was born with a rare bone disorder that stunted his growth and limited his mobility. He says he spent his childhood in a rural area where “people were ashamed that the next door neighbor was a disabled child.” Then one day, everything changed: a new teacher showed up at school on a Harley motorcycle. He was wearing a black leather jacket.

That teacher, Grovner Wood, became the principal and embarked upon teaching Boone magic tricks, frequently paging him over the loudspeaker to come down to the principal’s office.

Today, Boone says he owes everything to his former principal. He’s been a professional magician for 36 years and owns his own magic shop, Magic Central.

He says that people “see me as someone to pity. It takes a lot to get past that initial shock. But if I can make that person laugh their butt off, then they have no time to feel sorry for me, and they forget that I’m in a chair.”

From the Boston Globe:

In the face of complaints about inadequate equipment and ill-prepared medical workers, two of the nation’s leading hospitals have agreed to spend millions of dollars to improve accessibility for patients with disabilities.

Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hopital, both affiliated with Harvard University, voluntarily agreed to remove barriers, improve equipment and train staff.

For patients such as Pamela Daly, who was paralyzed in a car accident 37 years ago, the agreement is an acknowledgement of the disrespect and discomfort they have endured. As part of the compact, patients will be directly involved in approving consultants and reviewing blueprints for improvements. “We finally get to have a voice,’’ Daly said.

For the hospitals, it is an explicit recognition that they have failed to do enough to accommodate the region’s disabled children and adults, who now account for 15 percent of the state’s population. And it also means they are spared the humiliation and expense of lawsuits that activists elsewhere filed to force improved access to medical care.