‘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.

An investigation by Los Angeles television station KABC finds widespread evidence that bus drivers are putting the safety of wheelchair riders at risk and violating federal civil rights laws.

• Part 1: Wheelchairs on buses not always secured (with video)
• Part 2: Caught on tape: Wheelchair woes on MTA (with video)
• Part 3: MTA begins using tether straps on buses (with video)

In a two-month investigation, hidden cameras showed bus drivers were not properly securing wheelchairs and passengers. Undercover video showed broken equipment and drivers who said they were not trained, or too busy to help wheelchair riders secure their chairs as required by federal law. KABC found 957 accessibility complaints submitted to the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) over the past 27 months.

In Part 2, a bus driver was not able to secure a passenger’s wheelchair and told her she would have to “hold on to the chair.” When she replied that she was not able to do so, the driver responded, “Yes, you can.”

“Every single day, they’re supposed to be checking their buses to see that they have that equipment,” said disability rights attorney David Geffen. “Somebody’s not doing their job at the MTA.”

From the Boston Globe, Galveston County [TX] Daily News:

Charles Sabatier, who became a nationally known advocate for disability rights after being wounded in Vietnam, has died of cancer. He was 63.

“My goal is equal citizenship,” he told the Globe in 1988 as he prepared to step down as executive director of Boston’s Commission for Persons with Disabilities. “Nothing less is acceptable. We’re looking for equitable treatment, although not necessarily identical. A disabled person should have the same options as everybody else. I came within an inch of giving my life for this country. The idea of being denied equal opportunity because it might not be cost-effective is utterly reprehensible to me.”

As head of Boston’s disability commission, Sabatier improved access around the city and helped get an elevator installed in Faneuil Hall. A lawyer, Sabatier also challenged degrading treatment on airlines and served as senior policy adviser in the federal Department of Labor’s Office of Disability Employment Policy.

Los Angeles Times blogger Michael McGough says he can relate to Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, who was photographed using crutches to navigate the halls of Congress after she broke her ankle yesterday.

It reminded him of the time years ago when he was hurt in a car accident and learned firsthand about the inaccessibility of public places. An excerpt:

When I asked for a wheelchair, the nurse refused, saying, “In my experience, if you give a patient a wheelchair, it just becomes a crutch.”

(Photo from AP video on Washington Post)

From the ABC News “Political Punch” blog, Associated Press/USA Today, the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal Photo Journal:

U.S. Park Police arrested 91 demonstrators in front of the White House yesterday, including some in wheelchairs who chained themselves to the fence. They were protesting what they said was the Obama administration’s failure to honor its campaign promises to support the Community Choice Act.

The measure would provide people with disabilities and older Americans the option to use federal funding for community-based attendant services instead of just for nursing homes.

(Photo from the Wall Street Journal)