My children and I belong to Virgin Active. We swim a lot, both kids really enjoy it and it's the one thing they will both do without fuss, exercise wise. Both have ASD, a boy, 11 and a girl, 7. Now here's the problem, ds cannot manage to shower and get dressed alone but at age 11, he cannot accompany me to the women's changing room. The disabled facilities are not great, they are not nearly as nice as the other changing facilities, the shower actually has a toilet in the same room, so it's essentially a shower in a public toilet. Last time we went a cleaner was moaning about all the water on the floor after we had showered. This would never happen in the other changing areas. I've complained and was listened to but nothing has changed.
So today I decided that I would shower ds in the women's shower area and then send him to get dressed only in the disabled changing room (it's fine for that, just nasty for showering). We did this and it worked well though I wasn't comfortable with him getting dressed alone, but I dd and I changed like lightening and went and helped him (takes him a lot longer). So all in all it was fine.
But I am not happy about it. Their disabled facilities are simply not good enough, obviously I have found a way round it but I shouldn't have to should I? we should have the same lovely facilities that everyone else has?
So what would you do? Is there any independent organisation who inspects this kind of thing? I actually laid awake worrying about this last night but like I say luckily my new system worked albeit my son with ASD has to be unsupervised for it to do so, which I don't think is right.
Please or to access all these features
Please
or
to access all these features
AIBU?
To think disabled people should have exactly the same facilities as non-disabled people?
106 replies
Sparklysilversequins · 05/04/2014 15:04
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