Your letters - December 2008

Paralympics promoted respect
As a blind Chinese journalist, the question I was asked most often after the Paralympics was: “How has it changed your life?” One day, when I was feeling my way along late at night with a white cane, an elderly man came up and offered me help. He asked if it was OK for him to take my arm and carry my cane for me. I welcomed his respect and understanding. The Paralympics may not change everybody’s attitude but at least it gives the opportunity for disabled and non-disabled people to function together and learn more about each other.
Jin Ling, Beijing, by email

What does the EHRC actually do?
I’m not surprised that the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has had a poor start (Disability Now October). Like the DRC before, it seems to exist not to actually do anything, but to tell us why nothing can be done. The response is always the same: yes, you have a case, but you would have to take the offending company to court, with all the legal costs and time involved. The EHRC always invokes the twin escape clauses of a) reasonable adjustments (ie it would cost the company too much) or b) alternative means of offering the service (ie shop on-line). Has the EHRC ever acted to make any shops or buildings more accessible? I know of only one example. Until the EHRC becomes pro-active by appointing staff to pursue companies who flout the law rather than just having “telephone helpline advisers”, nothing will improve.
Gordon Rennie, by email

ASDA scheme flawed
Some time ago, I helped with your Baywatch parking survey and monitored the ASDA carpark in Perth. ASDA then got a lot of publicity for its “initiative” to monitor its accessible spaces and fine offenders. It did not take the locals long to ignore this. In addition, the company that monitors the spaces is contracted to check almost every off-street parking space in Perth. It is a safe bet that there will be only one check per day and none at the weekend. Abuse is back to what it was at the time of the survey. Once again, I have to wait for a space or drive back home.
Allan McKinnon, by email

ASDA REPLIED: “The system can be abused, as we accept it has been at our Perth store, and so we continue to patrol our stores on a regular and random basis.”

CityJet pilot ‘unaware’
In October I flew to Dublin from London City. The CityJet pilot told me he had not heard of the new European regulations about disabled passengers’ rights, which include a duty on airlines to train staff. He insisted that anyone using a wheelchair to reach the steps must take a window seat though the policy of Air France, which owns Cityjet, is that mobility-impaired passengers must use aisle seats. The Civil Aviation Authority is meant to enforce the rules in the UK; so should their French and Irish counterparts. Instead, they are all buck-passing. They put the onus on the disabled passenger to chase from country to country to make complaints or threaten court action. I don’t feel it should be my responsibility to re-educate an entire crew, and cajole an airline into changing its policy.
Dr J Johnson, by email

CITYJET REPLIED: “CityJet is very sorry for the trouble this customer experienced. It has been conducting awareness training with all its cabin crew since July 2007.
Its pilots are very rarely in contact with passengers and have therefore not yet been included in the awareness training.”

No right to buy homes for disabled owners
Andy Rickell’s article on the possibility of the UK opting out of certain parts of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (Disability Now November) did not mention that disabled people have no right to buy adapted properties. My father was denied the right to have a property adapted for him to move into and was then not given the right to buy from the council when millions of other Britons were, not only because the council did not provide accessible housing but because property built or adapted for people with a disability is not included in right-to-buy legislation. It costs about £500 to make a property accessible before it is constructed but between £25,000 and £30,000 to adapt it after it’s been built.
Steve Smith, by email

Ed’s Warnock cartoon hit the spot
Thank you for printing the brilliant cartoon of Baroness Warnock (Disability Now November, ed cetera). As someone who is (slightly) disabled through old age, I appreciated it very much.
Elspeth Chowdharay-Best, honorary secretary, Alert

Suicide: no freedom of choice for some
Your piece on assisted suicide is twaddle (Disability Now November, Editorial). An equal right to proper and appropriate treatment for someone incapable of doing anything and tortured with frustration, does not put the problem right. A friend with multiple sclerosis had every possible treatment and care in his home. This did not resolve the problem and did not end the torture. People who are physically capable of leaping to their death have the freedom of choice to do so; people incapable of doing so do not. If assisted suicide is legalised, there will be assessment and regulation.
Martin Lightfoot, Peterborough

Learning from Barack
Like you, I welcome the possibilities for humanity presented by the election of Barack Obama. He spoke, in his acceptance speech, of what his election represented for many excluded groups, including disabled people. He has said he will adopt and ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities without reservations. What a contrast to Gordon Brown, who claims he has “many shared progressive values” with Obama but intends to reserve on a number of important rights for disabled people, including the right to sign language for deaf people, the right to an inclusive education and the right to make decisions about one’s own life. This hardly lives up to New Labour’s claim to put human rights at the heart of their government.
Richard Rieser, chair of the UN Convention Campaign Coalition, an alliance of UK disability organisations

Stations need work too
I read your article about the new accessible tube carriages with great interest (Disability Now November, Tried and Tested). It is all very well having more accessible carriages but the problem is there are very few stations where it is possible for people like me with mobility impairments to get down to the platform, as so few are accessible.
Joan Edwards, Northampton