How it all started
My husband is disabled. He has a neuropathy of lower back, feet and legs and has recently been diagnosed with polymyalgia rheumatica.
What I did to try to overcome it
He is unable to bend down to pick things up. He uses grab sticks.
How it made me feel
We live in Sheltered Housing 1st Floor Flat owned and run by Southern Housing Group.
The outcome
"My husband has a battery operated scooter which he is able to use to go downstairs, However, there is a door between the lift and the rest of the building. When this door is closed, which is quite frequently, my husband is unable to get off his scooter to bend down to floor level and push the catch to hold it down into the floor. It is not easy even for an able-bodied person to do. I have made a notice like this ""Please leave this door open at all times to provide access for the disabled. Thank-you"" and attached it to the door. The door is STILL being left closed. My husband has to take his mobile phone with him and ring me ( if I'm here) so that I can go down and open the door for him. Otherwise, he has to come back upstairs. I have repeatedly requested to change the door fitting to one which holds the door open at the top. I am told it will take 4 weeks for Surveyor to come and look at this, then we have no idea how much longer it will take for them to action this request. I have told them that I see this as a form of discrimination against the disabled. I find it very dispiriting that the welfare of the disabled is given such a low priority. In fact we frequently feel that older people are treated as though because bits of their body no longer work, their brains don't either. This is very offensive! Recently when I had to request that a closure bracket be removed from a newly installed fire door to our flat ( it kept closing on my husband before he could get through) an employee asked "How long have you lived here?" When I replied, '9 years' she said to me "Why don't you go and live somewhere else if all you can do is complain!"
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Comments
Just to say that the company who own and run the Sheltered Housing where we live and who we're requested months ago to organise the re functioning of this door have STILL not done so.
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