Thursday 4 December 2014

Facilities for the Disabled. Is it really that hard?

This was left as a comment by Chris Balchin, but we have decided to make it a full post again.

May I just take this opportunity to say the following:

I would just like to say that I've long been aware of the phrase

'It's the Squeaky door that gets the oil'.

For those of you who have had to endure the lack of adequate facilities in The Lancaster Unit, The Orchard and the appalling disregard to your needs Trust wide, [the same experiences and worse that I too have experienced] I offer my apologies for squeaking too quietly, and possibly too timidly for too long.

I let you down.

But I care about you. I respect you, your dignity and relative independence.
However, I promise you and all future users of The Orchard and wider Trust that as long as I am able, I will not let go until you have facilities that at least match those of the new build, The Harbour, and see to it that attitudes are changed towards your needs and disadvantages. The Trust owes you that.
You are no less important in Burnley, Ormskirk, Lancaster or any part of Lancashire, than any patient being sent to the modern facility in Blackpool; when it opens of course.
This blog is a literal God send, facilitating serious amplification to my squeak and for that and their indefatigable determination to roar for those who can't or feel unable to even squeak for themselves, I give my heart felt thanks to the team.

Seriously -

Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU

To Ms Tierney Moore, Chief Executive of Lancashire Care I would ask this,

Why are individual voices ignored, regardless of the gravity of the message?
My message has been voiced since my time as an inpatient at the worst period of my mental ill health, but I was made to feel from the outset like a complete nuisance and an irritation.
And how can it be that the most senior member of the build project team for the £100,000 plus refurbished Lancaster Unit say he was "unaware" of the absence of any facilities for disabled people, and that "...it must have been an oversight".
Only to follow that up with an identical situation at the £1.2 million refurbished Orchard, even though I attended the Open Information Day prior to work on the Orchard refurbishment, specifically to advise of the situation in order to "...prevent the same issue reoccurring at The Orchard".

I deserve a transparent and honest answer to these points, as do the other service users and the financiers.

Chris

2 comments:

  1. What the he'll is going on. Jeeves! This is... ? What can I say? Words just totally escape me.

    Angry Knight Owl

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  2. We'd really like it if this was investigated too. You'd think that by now everywhere would be clued up on providing proper provision for disabilities, but maybe not.

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