Your Letters - December 2009

Assisted dying is not assisted suicide

Recent editions of Disability Now have carried negative articles on the “right to die” debate and I think it’s important to use this opportunity to clarifythe difference between assisted dying and assisted suicide.

I support assisted dying. There’s no doubt in my mind that terminally ill adults, making the decision of their own free will, should not be denied the right to take control over their final moments of life by opting for an assisted death.

I don’t however support assisted suicide. Assisted suicide is morally and ethically a very different issue. When a terminally ill adult is nearing the very end of their life and suffering unbearably, their decision to choose an assisted death is under­standable and rational.

But when an otherwise healthy person chooses to end a potentially long life because of impairment or disability, this is a tragedy and they should be given all the support and assistance they need to choose life over death.

To conflate assisted dying and assisted suicide in this debate mispresents the issue. Perhaps opponents of assisted dying aren’t confident enough to argue the point accurately. I hope you will continue to convey the spectrum of opinions on this issue and use accurate terminology in this important discussion.
Stephen Duckworth, Birmingham

Charity takes a stand on its mission

I read with interest the views on RNID’s presence at this year’s party conferences expressed by your contributors Sunil Peck (“Scope bucks charities’ negative trend”, website) and Peter White (“Putting on the frighteners”, Disability Now, November) but didn’t recognise the way our work was represented in either piece.

Peter White labelled our work as “…the ‘give us some money, or this will happen to you’ approach”. Sunil Peck said that we and other charities had “squandered the opportunity to promote a positive image of disability”.

Our stand at all three conferences offered delegates the chance to take our telephone Hearing Check, which is designed to offer people an easily accessible way to check their hearing.

The stand also showed a film featuring one of our members, Stanley Freed, discussing how living with a hearing loss became easier once he’d acknowledged the problem and got fitted with hearing aids, allowing him to continue to enjoy his passion for music. Without his hearing aids, Stanley couldn’t continue lecturing in music at the University of the Third Age. Stanley also spoke passionately about his experience at our Liberal Democrat fringe meeting.

Four million people in the UK could benefit from a hearing aid but don’t use one, and on average it takes 15 years for people to take action on their hearing loss.

Anyone with hearing loss can make very positive contributions to society and there are many support mechanisms to help them do this, such as the Access to Work scheme and rapid improvements in hearing aid technology, but these can’t be utilised if a hearing loss is not acknowledged and diagnosed.
Jackie Ballard Chief Executive, RNID

Internet bank problems? ‘Go to your local branch’

I was happy with Barclays Bank’s internet banking service (see “Banking on access to your money”, (Disability Now, October) until it introduced the PINsentry system. I have cerebral palsy with major dexterity issues and I use a communication aid.

Internet banking was ideal for me as I could operate my account independently. I make a lot of payments as I employ personal assistants and employ young students who change frequently. (I’m a young student myself.)

When Barclays first introduced PINsentry, I got them to let me open my page and make payments to existing payees without using PINsentry. They were adamant, however, that I couldn’t add new payees without PINsentry. When I explained this was physically impossible for me, they suggested I add new payees either by telephone banking or going to my local branch.

As a communication aid user, telephone banking was a disaster. Everytime I called them, they hung up on me. Going to my local branch rather defeats the object of internet banking and, anyway, I’m now at university 200 miles away from my local branch.

All the time, Barclays has been really difficult to deal with. They take ages to reply to complaints and I keep getting told to use telephone banking, even though I’ve explained my communication impairment to them over and over again.

They refuse to make any adjustment (reasonable or otherwise) to make their service accessible to me as a disabled person. That’s why I’ve referred them to the Financial Ombudsman.
Name supplied, by email

Disabled? Then you must be employable

Your article on party conferences (“Party! Party!! Party!!!”, Disability Now, November) was interesting. I find myself in surprising agreement with the Tories (now there’s a first) since, if disabled people are ever to reach the same employment levels as non-disabled colleagues, something needs to change.

David Freud, who worked for James Purnell, has put forward some interesting proposals, which some of us may find hard to agree with, but at least he’s coming at it from a “presumption of employability”, a phrase I know is used too often but is useful in getting non-disabled people to think differently about disabled people’s rights to work.

Both my kids have a similar condition to me and I’d dread to think that, after all our campaigns, arguments and profile raising, they were offered a job in a sheltered workshop!

Inclusion is tough but while workshops exist, employers and local authorities have the ready-made excuse that someone else will “look after” or “take care of” “the disabled”. No thanks: I’d put the workshops down as another barrier to remove, and accept that the current employees need support (and time) to move into work.
Graham Hughes, by email

Park and chide

Why, when we have to pay to have our photos on our Blue Badges, are they so rarely inspected? I reckon this is the cause of a great deal of misuse: someone puts a Blue Badge in the windscreen and that seems to be enough.

My husband has a Blue Badge and his photo has been checked only once. Just because there’s a Blue Badge in the vehicle does not mean it’s being used correctly. Why have a photo if it isn’t checked?
Margaret Ackroyd, by email

I’m a disabled wheelchair user and car driver and I’d like to agree with Malcolm Hosie (“Letters”, Disability Now, October). I also think people who use disabled parking spaces while sitting in their cars waiting for someone else are selfish.

I recently had to go for a check up at my local hospital and actually approached a man sitting in his car and asked if he could move so that I could use the space. All he did was wave the Blue Badge in my face and say he was entitled to be there.

I think able-bodied drivers should only be able to park in these spaces while picking up or setting down their disabled passenger(s).
Peter Reed Wilson, by email