Panelists Discuss Health Care Barriers, Solutions for People with Disabilities

An IDRPP panel on health care accessibility included women with different disabilities and challenges. Still, a few common themes emerged: inaccessible facilities, incompatible equipment, and the barriers put up by health care workers’ attitudes. 

Want to know more about how to make health care accessible? Visit our Accessibility & Health trainings page. 

Physical Inaccessibility 

The Americans with Disabilities Act has been law for 35 years, but some health care buildings remain inaccessible, either due to poor design, natural wear and tear, or because of the way rooms are arranged. A ramp that has settled well below the level of the sidewalk is an accessibility problem if the wheelchair user has to “pop a wheelie” to return to the walk. 

  

IDRPP Senior Program Coordinator Mary Ellen Heiner told of her experience getting an MRI before undergoing shoulder surgery. “I had called ahead to schedule it and I made them very much aware that I was a paraplegic and in a wheelchair and they assured me that that would be no problem.” But when they entered the imaging room, the staff had no way to help her onto the table. “My sister and I, we worked for a good 45 minutes trying to get me onto the table. I had bruises on my abdomen and ribs that can attest to the struggle we were going through, and it probably did even more damage to my shoulder.” 

Waiting and exam rooms can also be tricky to navigate in a wheelchair—panelist and IDRPP Project Coordinator Kelie Hess compared it to playing Tetris. 

Incompatible or Inadequate Equipment 

For IDRPP Community Advisory Committee Member Autumn Cuellar, automatic blood pressure cuffs turn a routine health assessment into an ordeal. “Automatic blood cuffs… squeeze my arm so tight, it leaves bruises for a couple days,” she said.  

Cuellar’s cerebral palsy makes it impossible to stay still. For her, a manual blood pressure cuff is a much better option. She has also struggled with MRIs and CAT scans, and she hopes the medical community can find a way to help people with tremors who are in a medical emergency to still receive good imaging. 

Even basic equipment can make a big difference. If a facility requires a wheelchair user to transfer from their wheelchair, it should have a transfer board. Office wheelchairs should include foot pedals. And health care workers should consider whether some protocols can be modified for people with disabilities. “Is it really necessary to get into that chair to have your eyes examined?” Heiner asked. 

Barriers of Attitude

“People with disabilities are treated differently,” said Hess. “One thing that's common is, if I go to an appointment with somebody, usually the professional directs that information to whoever I'm with, rather than discussing it with me. I don't think that they even realize that they're doing this. .... And it's almost this presumed idea that a person with a disability is not the one that has the capacity to receive that information, even though it's information about them.” 

“It’s hard when we are saying what we know, but not being listened to,” Cuellar said. When she experienced an increase in her tremors, the doctor’s advice was to take more medication. ”The medicine wasn’t helping at all,” she said. “I was trying to tell them, I don’t’ think this is CP. CP is not supposed to be degenerative.” Later she was diagnosed with functional neurological disorder (FND) and she learned that managing anxiety helped her manage the bigger tremors. 

The panelists agreed, health care workers often dismiss symptoms as part of their disability. “Individuals with disabilities can have other things going on that are separate from their primary disability,” Hess said.  

“I would actually say that from my experience, those attitudes and perceptions have been an even greater barrier to me accessing quality healthcare than even the physical barriers that might exist.” 

For information and resources on making health care more accessible, visit our Accessibility & Health project website.