to find it demeaning to be made to use a wheelchair?

[RevoltingPeasant]

This happened a few months ago, but it is one of those stupid things that just niggles at you. I found myself thinking about it today and thought I'd ask AIBU.

I had to have an operation recently which involved me staying in hospital for one day for monitoring, sleeping there overnight, getting up early in the morning for a scan/ test to check all was okay, and then having the op (bit involved, sorry!).

When I got up for the early morning scan, which was in a different part of the hospital building, the nurse on duty told me I had to be wheeled down to the room in a chair by a HCA. This was their policy about patient transport, and she would not budge on it.

Now, I am 32 and perfectly healthy except for this one problem. I do not think it is a brilliant use of resources to ask an HCA to wheel an able-bodied 32yo around a hospital myself! But more than that, I found it quite disempowering to be made to sit there passively and get wheeled around.

Let me be clear: I don't think wheelchair users are demeaned/ disempowered. If someone has mobility issues and a chair is their way of moving themselves around, fine, and if I had mobility issues I don't think I'd find using a WC a problem. It's the being wheeled by someone else when I don't have mobility issues that I found frankly demeaning.

AIBU?

I'd not considered factors like use of resources etc tbh but i quite like it....it's like a nice free ride and if your porter's nice you can have a chat with them on the way so...yes...i think you're being a bit U.

I know you have put in bold that you don't thing wheelchair users are demeaned or disempowered, but this could turn into a bunfight.

Was it an insurance issue?

I thought it was a H&S thing.

This tends to be for a few reasons. One that the porter/nurse should know where to take you which would make it quicker, and it doesn't allow a patient to 'wander off' and go missing. Were you in a gown or anything like that? It could be argued that being able to sit in a wheelchair would protect your modesty more.

Thinking about it i bet it is H&S. You can just imagine some people insisting they're fine and trying to walk then collapsing half-way down the corridor. Better to have a blanket policy so everyone will definitely be safe.

Its likely its hospital policy. What if you fell and trip on your way to the scan while you were in their care because you were still a bit weak from your operation?

Get over it.

I think perhaps you found it demeaning because you were made to do something rather than the actual being in a wheelchair being demeaning.

I suspect it is to do with insurance and safety.

But tbh I agree with Mardy. You link in your title wheelchair and demeaning - whatever your disclaimer says, that premis will upset some.
I think this will kaboom

YANBU I was hospitalised a few years back - something to do with my stomach and they insisted on ferrying me around on either a stretcher or a bloody wheelchair. I felt ridiculous - not because I find it ridiculous to be in a wheelchair - but because my legs were working absolutely fine and I didn't need to be pushed about!!! god it makes me angry just thinking about it!!!! it really, really pissed me off. Controlling bastards that they are. If it happened again I'd outright refuse to get in the fucking thing.

I think it's just hospital policy. I was in hospital over night mid last year and had to go for a scan the following morning. When the porter came to collect me with a wheelchair I said it was fine and I had no problem with walking to where ever I was meant to go. Like you, they wouldn't budge on it either and insisted I used the WC. TBH the thought of it being demeeing didn't even cross my mind. As I was told it was hospital policy I went along with it because:

1: I didn't exactly know the route to go anyway and would have got lost if i had to go solely alone - probably resulting in me not having the scan.

2: I figured the porter was doing his job and if he had let me walk then he might have been repremanded for not following hospital policy and I didn't want to get him in trouble for only doing what he was told to do.

Don't want it to turn into a bunfight!!! After all WC users generally move themselves around except where they are sufficiently frail that they need carers. But then they are being cared for to enable maximum independence and health.

Yes I think it is a H&S thing. But I felt like a toddler in a pushchair. I wasn't in a gown and I knew where the place was as I have had to go there before.

I think it's interesting that you would feel demeaned. I wonder if that's how people in wheelchairs have to adjust to feeling.

I think YAB a bit Unreasonable.

BUT

I also think being in hospital at all makes us feel vulnerable. The whole set-up mitigates against being able to fully express our preferences. It's why perfectly assertive people find it hard to speak up.

I used to work in the NHS, but had not been in hospital until I had my DCs. I was really struck by how small and stupid a very few HCPs made me feel - even though I had the knowledge, education, and assertiveness lots of other people lack. I shudder when I think about the terrible care some old people, for instance, suffer.

newpassion the point is I hadn't had my op. So I was fine. And he wasn't a porter, he was a HCA. He went away from the ward he had been working on leaving a bunch of patients who had had their operations to wheel someone with 2 working legs!

So what if you hadn't had your op. Its still hospital policy. Get over it.

.... because they (old people) aren't allowed to exercise any choice

I've been on both sides of this. When I was PG I was taking a patient to another ward, and he was really angry that a nurse has to push him in a wheelchair, esp because I was pregnant and he was "healthy" (I think he was more worried what people would think of a 40yo man being pushed along by a pregnant woman). But it is policy in my ward, because of the dreaded and much maligned H+S policies. In the end, he agreed as long as I wasn't the one pushing. I'm not sure why this would be demeaning; it's a hospital, the journey would be short, and really, these things are in place for your benefit.

On the other hand, when I had my son I ended up in theatre twice for bleeding probs. Days later my son was taken for a scan. Like you, they made me go in a wheelchair. I felt in was unnecessary, but complied so that I could be with my son. We had to go outside and cross the road to get to another building. Several cars stopped so my husband could push me across the road. When we got to the other side, the pavement wasn't lowered, so I had to stand to get onto the pavement. the drivers faces were It had been entirely unintentional, but my DH and I still giggle about that some years later.

What you should find annoying is people who have sued hospitals for doing what you want and fell, which is why hospitals have to institute policies that you find demeaning.

Being in hospital in general can be very demeaning. YANBU.

Hospitals here make you sit in a wheel chair and get pushed, it didn't bother me too much, free ride.

thumper that is actually quite funny You can just imagine all the Daily Mail headlines -

NHS pays for healthy woman to be wheeled about in plush double decker chair etc

newpash not sure why you're so hacked off about this. I went in the chair, you know, I didn't kick up a fuss, I'm just ruminating about how I felt. Sheesh. I know the nurse had a job to do and I didn't make her life difficult.

When dd was a few weeks old and had to be admitted into hospital I had to sit in the wheelchair while holding dd. Have to say we got to the ward a lot faster then trying to find our own way

YABU, in my experience the person least capable of assessing a patient's ability to walk somewhere safely without keeling over is the patient themselves. It's the same in my hospital, and I wouldn't have it any other way. If my patient needs to go somewhere, they do it in a chair or on a trolley, or they don't go.

Hmm. This once happened to me and I didn't like it either. But I can't help feeling that demeaning isn't the best choice of word to have used. Unnecessary, maybe.

RP, you might well feel demeaned and 'like a toddler' if you became temporarily or permanently dependent on a wheelchair anyway. Judging from what friends say, it's a pretty common reaction - because lots of people will insist on treating people who use wheelchairs like children. I understand you're saying you think you feel like this because you're able-bodied, but it just seems to me the bigger problem is that lots of people feel like that permanently, and maybe if we changed that, it'd mean you didn't feel that way either?

FWIW I think it's sensible to have a blanket rule because when my mum needed help getting around she constantly did herself more damage by insisting she didn't need a chair or a stick. It's possible the harm she did is the reason she'll never get fully better. It'd take far more of hospital resources to assess each person and see if they're being stubborn or if they're actually ok to walk.

good point featherbag. But I do wonder if this is about control rather than the chair pers e