Yes I know it's another disabled toilet thread but I am so angry and need to rant somewhere.
Just got back from our local Wetherspoons as been for a meal with the children during which my son (7 years old) needed the toilet.
In Wetherspoons the toilets are upstairs and there is a disabled toilet downstairs.
I went to take him to the disabled toilet, he has many diagnosed conditions including Dyspraxia (struggles to walk up stairs as poor balance), Global Development Delay (cannot manage his own toileting needs and needs me to wipe his bottom, re-dress him etc.), Continence Issues (can soil/wet himself if dosn't get to a toilet in time) and Autism (dosn't react well to hand dryer noise) so we always use a disabled toilet where we can as it means I can go in with him and help him whereas normally it's difficult but with these toilets being upstairs I would have needed to carry him up and being 7 months pregnant at the minute I could not have managed.
He is legally registered as disabled and has high rate DLA for both care and mobility. He has full time 1-1 care during school. Just trying to show he is disabled and fairly severe.
Got to the disabled toilet and saw they were locked, not by a radar key (we have one of those) so went to the bar and asked the waitress for the key to the toilet.
Coversation went like this, with a word or two wrong proberly:
Me: Hi, can I have the key for the disabled toilet please
Her: No problem, who is it for?
Me: My son (whilst pointing to him)
Her: What's wrong with him?
Me: He is disabled and needs the toilet.
Her: I need to know why, it's for disabled people only.
Me: He is disabled. He has 6 different diagnosed conditions (getting the blue badge out of my bag to show her at this point). He struggles to manage the stairs and I can't carry him so he does need to use it.
Her: I am sorry but we only allow people who can't walk upstairs to use it.
Me: He can't walk up the stairs.
Her: Well he seems to walk fine now (pointing over to him as he is walking round the table)
Me: Started to argue back about the fact that walking on level ground and up stairs are two different things and while he can walk he has balance issues which you can clearly see by the fact he walks with his arms sticking out at the sides but got called by my DD and had to leave the conversation.
Went back to the children and DS has wet himself and is becoming distressed. We had finished eating at that point so got the children and left.
Phoned Wetherspoons when I got back as I was so annoyed that my son had been refused access to the toilet when he is disabled and I had his blue badge to prove it.
Manager apologised to me but explained that it is down to the decission of individual staff as to wether someone is entitled to use the disabled toilet or not and that their guidence is people who can walk don't need it so the waitress did nothing wrong.
AIBU to think:
a) My son WAS entitled to use the toilet
b) It's not down to the staff to decide who is entitled to use the toilet or not
c) I shouldn't have to spend 10 minutes arguing why my son needs the toilet and giving out confidential information about his conditions in front of a bar full of people drinking.
I am considering writing a complaint but not sure if it's worth it, just bloody angry on behalf of my DS and annoyed our meal out was cut short (we had not yet ordered deserts).