IT is most encouraging nowadays to see more and more disabled-friendly features popping up in buildings everywhere.
Wheelchair parking, complete with ramps into a building together with handicapped user-friendly restrooms are the perfect and welcoming sight for anyone with a disability.
However, a recent and I must say, rather chilling episode I encountered taught me a sober lesson about handicapped friendly buildings: User-friendly designs in a building are only good if the service providers are prepared to take the extra step to reach out to people with special needs.
In other words, there is no point in having handicapped friendly facilities and expecting things to fall into place naturally after that.
My ordeal happened over two days. It was at the beginning of the Raya/Merdeka holidays.
I drove over to Tesco Extra in Shah Alam, Selangor to do some last-minute shopping. I also wanted to take advantage of the latest sales during the festivities.
My first disappointment was to see the handicapped parking occupied by non disabled drivers.
And what an irony that this was during the tail-end of the beautiful month of Ramadan – a special time to share the joy of the occasion with the less fortunate!
And we all know that “sharing” the car park with the disabled is not at all what the spirit of Ramadan is all about.
There were no security guards to stop the designated place from being abused.
Then more trouble followed.
I had to wait for about 15 minutes for the “other wheelchair occupant” to finish using the handicapped-friendly toilet.
Now that’s virtually light years in wheelchair time with our weak bladders or bowels!
After a loud flushing sound, out came “Mr Handicapped”. Except that he was a young man about thirty and not at all visibly disabled in anyway; unless he had a learning or mental disability.
However, I will not insult my intellectually and emotionally challenged brothers and sisters for I know them well. They have no need to use a loo meant for the physically disabled. Even if they did, they are much more thoughtful to do such a thing.
To my horror, the toilet was full of cigarette smoke that made me choke and cough. The big and clear disabled logo outside on the door belied the actual situation of the restroom.
The inside furniture lacked maintenance. The pipes were not working properly. The toilet seat was filthy. The grab bars were shaky - creating a treacherous situation for users with handicaps with balance problems.
Then, just when I thought I saw everything; another shell-shock incident.
The door suddenly burst open (indicating the lock was also not in order) and a man with a bewildered face stood in front of me with his fly opened halfway.
He was clearly shocked to see me when he barged in to use the loo. I was greatly startled too. But not as upset when I realised that he was a staff of Tesco.
With attitudes like this, is it a wonder why patrons of the hypermarket also make it a practice to show disrespect to handicapped friendly facilities in the building?
When I insisted on making a complaint, I was asked to wheel about a hundred metres by myself to meet the supervisor at the counter instead of doing the most sensible thing: radioing her to meet me where I was located.
No one called me to apologise for the goof ups the next day.
But my story doesn’t end there.
Within 24 hours, I ended up at Tesco Extra again to collect something that I had forgotten the previous day.
This time I was smart. I took along a friend with me. Whilst I sat in my car as he dashed into the hypermarket to get the item, would you believe, disaster struck again?
My car’s battery died. I had to wait for more than an hour for the auto rescue to get to me.
In the 30-odd minutes that my friend took to return, I couldn’t help feeling extremely vulnerable in my position.
Even though I had wheelchair stickers plastered all over my car – and virtually surrounded by scores of people going about in their merry way with their shopping, I felt trapped in my car, invisible and all alone in my awkward spot.
When my friend finally came back, he managed to get some of the staff to push my car to a safer spot before they disappeared.
Even then the staff were obviously not trained to properly respond to a SOS situation of a disabled person.
I don’t know. Questions like: “Are you alright sir?” “Do you need assistance to go the restroom?” would have been helpful.
Heck even a cuppa at that moment just to calm my frazzled nerves would have gone a long way to assuage the situation.
The End
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