Official Report search · Parliament Workbench

Chamber

Plenary, 05 Mar 2008

05 Mar 2008 · S3 · Plenary

Item of business

Wheelchair Users <br />(Human Rights)

White, Sandra SNP Glasgow Watch on SPTV

I am a member of the Equal Opportunities Committee, and I was also a member of the committee in the previous session, when Cathy Peattie was the convener. We carried out an inquiry into disability issues and took evidence on the matter from Government ministers, and the committee continues to consider the matter.

In the inquiry, we considered the choices that people with disabilities have. Time after time, we heard that wheelchair users could not get new wheelchairs and that they faced problems with access to buses, trains and so on. Other members have raised that point, and it is important because, as Johann Lamont said, the situation has been going on for years and years. I would like the minister to take that on board and write to local authorities to remind them that people who use wheelchairs have just as much right as the rest of us to enter town centres, use pavements, enter public toilets and so on.

To get back to the substance of the motion, I congratulate Trish Godman on bringing the matter to the chamber for debate. She has raised the matter many times, and I have also raised it in committees and in the Parliament.

I will give an example of a constituency case that I dealt with. A young person was told that, because she was going to grow, she could not get a wheelchair. That was absolutely ridiculous. The health board could not afford to give her a wheelchair simply because she was going to grow—she was about eight years old at the time—and it would have had to replace the wheelchair. As Johann Lamont said, a wheelchair is not a prop—it is something that helps people's quality of life, and people should have the right to a wheelchair as they grow, progress through life and access education or whatever.

I was appalled, not just by the answers that I received from the health board but by the treatment received by people who approach health boards to request an upgraded wheelchair because they are older or their disability has got worse. They are sometimes treated with such disdain that it is downright disgraceful.

Health boards should perhaps have training—Johann Lamont and Bill Kidd mentioned training on how to lift people from wheelchairs, but perhaps boards or doctors should be given training in basic good manners when they are speaking to people who say that they need an upgraded wheelchair to have a decent quality of life. One of the most appalling aspects is that the health boards use a lack of money or facilities to prevent people from getting upgraded wheelchairs.

The problem has been with us for far too long and, unfortunately, it will probably continue to be with us—although, I hope, only for a number of months. I hope that the new Government and the Minister for Public Health will seriously consider it. I hope that, as well as writing to local authorities as previously requested, the Government will write to health boards to tell them that someone in a wheelchair deserves to live their life in the same way as the rest of us. Health boards should not use the excuse of having no money or people growing for not giving someone a wheelchair. I would like to see such a letter going not just from MSPs but from the minister.