Friday, June 02, 2006

Is this any way to treat a fellow human being?

Today we went out on the Access Link bus to go grocery shopping. It's normally pretty hard to deal with the fact that we are expected to wait up to 40 minutes for the bus to arrive(on both ends of the trip...going and returning home). However if WE are more than 5 minutes late they will leave without us. Well, we were told to be ready for the bus to take us home from the supermarket by 5:57PM this evening, and by that hour we were sitting outside the store waiting for the bus....which finally arrived at 7:20PM!!! Is this an acceptable way to treat our most vulnerable citizens...people with Cerebral Palsy, Spina Bifida, Multiple Sclerosis? What if they want to meet family or friends for dinner or a movie and the bus is an hour and 20 minutes late? These are people who are often very ill. Should they be expected to sit and wait over an hour and a quarter for their bus to arrive? And don't forget, the bus is often late on BOTH ends of the trip. Donna has a home health aide come in the evenings to give her dinner and get her undressed and washed up and ready for bed. The aide is supposed to be with her for 2 hours. She is not going spend an hour and 20 minutes of her time sitting and waiting for Donna to get home. And even if she did wait all that time, there would be almost no time left for dinner and personal care. Fortunately, I am there to help Donna out in these kind of emergencies. Disabled people who don't have someone like me to help out can't use the bus. They are not capable of taking care of themselves if the aide leaves before the bus arrives. This is not an acceptable way to treat the sick and disabled. I know people who depend upon taxi cabs to get to work or the supermarket. When the cab is 20 minutes late, they are furious. How would they like to wait over an hour and a quarter for their cab to arrive, and then wait again when they were ready to come home? No one would put up with such horrible service, yet the disabled must suffer with this on a regular basis. We are the richest nation on the face of the globe. Is this the best we can do for people like Donna?

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