Shopping with DS wheelchair…just sounding off as I am fed up today

[Livingtothefull]

1. I went to the supermarket in the big town near us last week with DS (16) who is in a wheelchair….went to look for a wheelchair trolley, found just one which was broken.

Waited at customer service desk while they checked if there was another one available. Waited for a long time….DS got agitated with the waiting (he has learning difficulties). Eventually they confirmed there was no other wheelchair trolley in the store, despite it being a large branch of a big, household-name supermarket.

Without a wheelchair trolley I can't do my shopping as I can't push a normal trolley or carry a basket and manoeuvre the wheelchair at the same time. So in the end they had to send a member of staff with me to assist me.

1. Went shopping again with DS today in another branch of the same supermarket. Again just one wheelchair trolley which was broken so same thing again.

I don't think it's too much to ask that I can just come to the supermarket, get a trolley and do my shopping like everyone else, without having to wait around for a solution because the one suitable trolley is missing or out of action.

DS likes travelling on the bus (there are limited things in life for him to enjoy but he does enjoy bus journeys) so I agreed to get the bus home with him. The bus turned up but the driver didn't open the side doors or drop the ramp down for us. So I went to speak to him while the other passengers were getting on:

Me: 'Could you let us on the bus at the side doors please?'
Driver: 'Sorry no there's no space for you'.
Me: 'There's lots of space, we need the wheelchair space.'
Driver: 'There's a buggy on board'.
Me: 'But that's a wheelchair space, wheelchairs have priority'.
Driver: 'No the buggy got on before you and she already paid for her ticket, and that's that.'

and drove off. He didn't even ask the people with the buggy to make space btw.

I had to wait for the next bus to come, this had a much larger buggy on board but the driver let me on and the mother with the buggy happily made space…no need for her to get off the bus.

What upsets me about this is: the odds are that most busy buses will have at least one buggy so if every bus driver took the same attitude as the first one, DS & I could easily be there all night. Also DS may have a meltdown if he is forced to wait to long and believe me his meltdowns aren't pretty (have posted previously about these).

I am having a rant and I know all this sounds really negative but please try to put yourselves in my shoes?

Like I said I would never say anything or make any assumptions about individuals.

But that doesn't change the fact that people who use things like lifts, or disabled toilets when they don't need to make life harder for those who do need those things.

Basically people need to take a second to stop and think before using things like that if they don't need to! If wanting people to think makes me a twat then I am happy to be one, especially if it makes one person think twice before they do something that they may not normally think twice about.

Are lifts purely for disabled people? Ime anyone can use them. As I child I was terrified of escalators, or if you had a sore knee/were a bit tired I'd assume it was fine to use a lift in a store. Using a disabled trolley is quite different imo.

That's not what you said though sirzy, you just whinged about the familis using the lifts, no acknowledgment or consideration that some may need them because of disability also. Which is just another form of disablism.

Well I apologise if my post want clear but that certainly wasn't how it was intended to read.

I will use my own family as an example of what I mean. When we are out as an extended family of 9 there are 3 members of the party who are disabled. 2 in chairs and one on a stick (two in chairs little ones so not self propelled) so if we need to use a lift those three plus the two pushing the chairs will use the lift, the other 4 of us will use the stairs/escalator and meet them at the bottom (if escalator generally only the chairs would use the lift)

Like I said though I apologise if my post caused offence as that's certainly not how I intended it to read

Sirzy's posting history makes it quite plain that they have no record of disabilisim, quite the reverse from the numerous threads I've come across them on.

It doesn't matter if people intend to be disabilist or not, it still is.

Having people who have disabilities in your family isn't an excuse to be disabilist to others. Saying you wish people who don't need lift or disabled toilets don't use them is very different from what was said. But, ime, people with visable disabilities are often discrimoratory to those of us who don't. Most of my friends have some form of hidden disability or long term illness, so have a good 50% of colleeges, I think it's way more common than anyone assumes.

I have mobility problems (which aren't visible) and would prefer to use a lift rather than escalators and definitely use a lift over a flight of stairs. But wheelchairs are always a priority. I don't think it's that much more than common sense. I am walking, struggling but still on my feet. A person in a wheelchair has ONE way of moving about and that means they should get priority. Even a child in a buggy with two parents has more than that option, they can be carried by the parents.

My daughter was recently in America, she went with Destination Dreams as a volunteer with a group of 25 families with disabled children. She said the facilities for them were incredible. Things like swimming pools which were wheelchair accessible - not hoists - you just wheel the kids in. They had everything available to them and there were no issues with access anywhere they went. Even going to the parks, they were given ultra passes which meant they skipped to the front of the queues even in front of the priority passes. They were treated so well and with such compassion and care.

I think we have an awful lot to learn here. I have had to use a wheelchair on two occasions in my life, both on long days out where it's just too much for me to handle walking. On both occasions I felt invisible. On both occasions people talked over my head to my DP like I was incapable of talking myself or having an opinion on anything. It's bloody insulting!

MN is the only place I know where everyone knows nearly everyone who has hidden disability's.

Half the people using lifts are just chance to be bloody lazy fond. And I say that as someone who actually has a hidden disability.

And yes I think a person in a wheelchair should have priority over someone with hidden disabilities who can you know actually walk.

YADNBU
The supermarket situation is disgraceful enough but I just cannot understand how that bus driver could just drive off without at least trying to resolve it. That's got nothing to do with the job - just basic human decency

Too right, Mortificado and I speak as someone with a hidden disability and the mother of a child with a hidden disability.

I also believe that an apology that has been graciously given should be graciously received.

I'm really sorry. Shocking behaviour all round.

According to my DS the wheelchair trolleys are provided as a courtesy of the store. No official guidelines. Which is really quite shit

I'll probably get shouted down, but my first thought was: you don't know that the person with the buggy, or person in the buggy, wasn't disabled themselves! Discrimination against disabled people is wrong, but that applies equally to people with "hidden" disabilities too! The disabled space isn't there for "the most disabled person" on the bus. It is there for the first disabled person, there is no "Top Trumps" contest for which person is the most disabled.

I hate it when people immediately assume that the person already in the space or seat is just being selfish. Not all disabilities are as "in your face" as your son's may be. Some people with disabilities look normal, but need the seat or space just as much or perhaps more than your son does.

You got the second bus anyway. This suggests that the company does indeed have a policy of asking people to move provided that the person who has to move is not disabled themselves!

As for the supermarket, they are damned either way. There are only a finite number of disabled trolleys available. As with the bus, it's the rule of first come, first served. I agree that maybe the system needs to be reviewed, maybe a straightforward option to pay a tenner to reserve a disabled trolley in advance, and provided you turn up at the allotted time you then receive the money back off your shopping. (I think there needs to be a fee, otherwise people will reserve a trolley and then not turn up.)

I am surprised that Waitrose only had one disabled trolley though. Maybe it's their reputation for higher prices and the presumption that disabled people are generally poorer (at least, that's the impression you'd get from the media). Certainly the one near me has a whole row of them, sitting neatly and looking as if they have never been used!

Snatched I think that's bollocks. By that reasoning next time a person in a wheelchair gets on the bus il be sure to tell them that by having bi-polar and being there first means I get that seat

I'd be told to piss off and rightly so.

^Are lifts purely for disabled people? Ime anyone can use them.

Of course. Nobody is suggesting the Lift Police. This one has to be left to the innate decency or otherwise of individuals.

I have blue badges for myself and both of my children, dispute the fact we can all walk. When I get to a disabled parking space I use it, when I have received abuse from people in wheelchairs I don't suddenly give them the space because their disability makes them a priority. Lifts or disabled toilets are no different. And my childrens asd and adhd and social anxiety and panic disorders makes waiting virtually impossible. And while I can walk my knees dislocate if I stand for long, and all the opiates, anti epileptics, anti depressants and valium I take make my BP v low so dizzy spells are common & I'm not waiting around longer than I need to if that hits. Then the incontinence problem, sickness that are every bit as difficult if standing than not.

If you're apologising for being unintensionally disablist and learning from it that's one thing, but oh I didn't mean it that way isn't what I'd consider a genuine apology or taking responsibility for it.

Snatched buses have wheelchair spaces. It's not fair they don't also have the opposite space protected spaces for those with disabilities who use buggies (mine replaced my walking frame I used are that stage), or a non folding walking frame, or an assistance dog, but currently the wheelchair space is protected. So that's what it should stay.

My daughter uses a wheelchair. A common problem is cafes and restaurants using the obligatory disabled loo as a storeroom. I open the door to see it rammed with piles of sanitary supplies/ canned goods, rendering it completely inaccessible.

The bus thing is so frustrating, I avoid buses with my daughter unless away on holiday without a car but my eldest daughter used to take her sister on the bus regularly and has been reduced to tears of frustration by being repeatedly left in the gutter in the rain by bus drivers who can't be arsed to faff about with ramps and tell her to "wait for the next one Love", and once by a charming mother who was really nasty to her about having to pack up her pushchair.

People do lack imagination and empathy.,

Sunshine I sympathise but nothing on your list gives you right of way over a wheelchair. I'm not surprised you've been judged tbh.

Legally it does, our blue badges mean we can park there if we need, if we are first. The law matters more than your opinion.

I have a blue badge myself. The law doesn't mean you can't have empathy and manners.

To be honest that list of drugs (if not an exaggeration) coupled with dizziness would normally mean your license revoked on medical grounds.

DVla are fine with Meds, as are the huge team of hcp we have working with us, I have been on them for life. Disabilities being visable do not mean worse, or in greater need, you need to learn some empty yourself. People with hidden disabilities don't have to give way to those that are visible, I have to assess the risk of my children melting down and attacking themselves and others and the risk of my body dislocating. You can't know the ins and outs of other people's conditions.

Like hell the dvla would be ok with that list!

I'm not conversing with you anymore as quite frankly I don't believe you.

I'm bowing out before I get banned.

OP I hope the store do something about the lack of trolleys. It's really not on.

Ha you shitting up would be lovely because clearly your not the expert on others lives or have any understanding of empthy