The first Edmonton election issue on disability begins ... NOW!

On Tuesday we shared the new policy the Disabled Adult Transportation wants to shift into gear Sept. 1 and have users cancel their rides two hours in advance. We received many emails and tweets from users who are very unhappy with the decision, claiming — and rightly so — their independence is being taken away. We also received an e-mail from DATS director Deanna Crozier asking for a meeting. She said she wants to explain the system wants to do more trips. But at what cost? Clearly, someone will lose out. We’ll find out more after the Monday meeting.

The very fact DATS is trying to make such a policy is another example of people with disabilities, perhaps, being too complacent. As a person with a disability, and a DATS user, I think we need to change the perception politicians and bureaucrats have. A classic example of this was how the provincial government and Alberta Health Services made sweeping changes to home care without consulting users. They felt they could do this because, after all, who would object? 

They were wrong. They awoke a sleeping giant, and the responses to the changes spoke volumes. Perhaps, then, the City of Edmonton felt they could do the same thing with this ridiculous new two-hour policy. They might have a fight on their hands. Because, as a very well-respected DATS user pointed out on the bus Tuesday, there’s a civic election in Edmonton in the fall. The new policy comes into effect Sept. 1. So, let’s make the official proclamation right now: people with disabilities in Edmonton are making the new DATS cancellation a election issue. Try steamrolling us now, folks.

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The July 15 Cam-burger: DATS going in reverse with new policy

The recent announcement from the Disabled Adult Transportation System about a new policy coming into effect Sept. 1 is a sad reflection in today’s society. DATS is changing their late cancel policy from 30 minutes to two hours.

The reasoning: DATS officials say they can schedule a ride for someone who cancels But two hours prior in advance? C’mon. Let’s be real. And, if you do not cancel within that two-hour time frame you get marked a no-show: even if you cancel, say, 60 minutes before your ride. And if you get three no-shows, you could be suspended from the service.

How lovely. This is an insult to the independence of people with disabilities in Edmonton. So we have questions. Does that mean if you’re working, you have to go to the boss 2 1/2 hours before you’re scheduled to go home to see if you have to work late? Does that mean you can’t go the extra mile and stay when the boss gives you a project they need done at the end of the day? Does this mean if you’re having such a good time at a social outing that you want to stay, you have to make that decision two hours in advance? Where’s the spontaneity here?

And what if you are on one of those 90-minute DATS rides, getting to your destination a half hour before you’re scheduled to return? Does this mean you only have 30 minutes at your destination because you didn’t call in the two-hour window? It is indeed most curious, considering we live in a society where we can get updated information by the second and DATS is going in reverse, asking their clients for an unreasonable amount of notice. Someone within the City of Edmonton needs to apply the brakes to this, sooner than later.

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A green folder with a chart? In my bathroom at home? You're kidding? Right?

Green doesn’t go very will with the color schemes in my bathroom.

But now I have a green folder in my washroom. And what’s worse is what in it — causing one to seriously ask if Alberta Health Services is running scared?

Perhaps more to the point: the provincial government’s health arm, apparently, believes all Albertans with people with disabilities do not have — and should not have — much control in their own care.

And we’re supposedly living in 2013 with progressive thinking?

I have cerebral palsy and use a wheelchair. I need assistance with my morning shower, getting onto a bath chair and adjusting the temperature of the water.

Here’s where the green folder enters the equation … and the bathroom. Alberta Health Services has implemented a new program: the person helping me with my shower must check the water temperature three times.

There’s a chart in the green folder and now must be initialed by the staff member after checking the shower temperature.

I seem to have lost the ability to do so myself, despite my 50 plus years of experience, and despite AHS officials not having the class to ask me if I can do so.

But hark! Something like that would take too much time, wouldn’t it? So AHS has decided to deem all people with disabilities in the same boat — tubs, you see, would be too small — and declare all of us mentally unfit to judge our own bath or shower water.

What if I come home next winter after being outside on a cold, stormy night and I am cold — and want a nice hot shower to warm up? Nobody can determine but me the warmth of the water that will warm me up except ... me.

I am insulted thinking that individual right now seems to be running down my shower drain.

I resent my own home, the very place I own with money I have worked for over 30 years, being turned into a mini-institution. Not even a single millimeter.

Over the decades, people with disabilities have fought blood, sweat and tears to live in the community and take risks, rather than co-habituating in the stoic walls of nursing homes and extended care centres.

I am fearful this new initiative — and I’m being kind, here — might be just the beginning of AHS taking more control. What’s next? Signs in our condo’s lobby stating visiting hours are over at 9 p.m.?

We have to ask ourselves why? Why is this happening now?

A good friend made an interesting point Sunday: something probably happened with community care that was handed over to a lawyer who let legal jargon over rule common sense and first-hand experience. AHS had to act, do something — and their new charting system fit the knee jerk reaction perfectly.

I am not, by any means, dismissing the seriousness of the scalding water.   Jeannie Wilson died in 2004 when she suffered burns in a bath tub as a resident living in the Jubilee Nursing Home in Edmonton.
Words cannot describe such a loss. 
I strongly suggest testing water temperatures for people who cannot do it for themselves is mandatory. Absolutely.
But it is fundamentally wrong for Alberta Health Services to march into private homes of mentally alert people and arbitrarily make such intrusive changes. 
It begs the question: how much is Alberta Health Services is, and why are they spraying innocent people with cold water?