This came from a friend at work
Sent: Tuesday, September 20, 2005 4:02 PM
Subject: Katrina and the disabled
Katrina renews old issue of how we view disabled
Sunday, September 18, 2005
DEBORAH KENDRICK
Even before a broad liberal-media outcry on behalf of "the other America" —
the desperately poor and overwhelmingly black victims of Hurricane Katrina —
I was wondering about the disregard for yet another subset of people.
This subset crosses all other minority lines, dipping a bit into this group
and that. It’s a human sea labeled people with disabilities.
I’m an insider who’s fared better than most who float in that sea. Simply by
staying tuned to history made and in the making, I knew that an unspoken
value
would be placed on lives: this one disposable, that one not. I knew that
people with disabilities wouldn’t be in the most favorable category.
I’m not just talking about the loss of lives, including the 34 nursinghome
residents with whose deaths Salvador and Mabel Mangano are now being charged.
And I’m not talking about the morphine overdoses given to the patients deemed
unsavable by one team of doctors in a drowning hospital.
My concerns are for those who escaped the floods, but who may well not
survive the turmoil of the aftermath.
When you think of people with disabilities, the easy-to-conjure ones come
immediately to mind: people who are blind and would have difficulty finding
where
to go; people who are deaf and are cut off from the usual lines of
communication; people in wheelchairs that can’t go where legs go.
While there are several real-life examples representing each of these
scenarios in Katrina’s aftermath, there are more frightening ones to consider.
Relief workers are not equipped to deal with people with developmental
disabilities who need assistance feeding, bathing and using toilets. Relief
workers
are not equipped to recognize a person with a communication disorder or a
person with a mental disability who has lost his or her medication or the
support
person who administers it.
Dozens of organizations have rushed to do what they can — sending
wheelchairs, eyeglasses, prescription drugs and medical supplies — but more is
desperately
needed, including expertise in distribution.
"Beyond the obvious needs for medical equipment," said Jim Baker, press
secretary for United Cerebral Palsy, "there are many other needs — like adult
diapers
— that people need just for their dignity."
In one sense, the gravest danger for people with disabilities displaced by
Hurricane Katrina is the same old issue that has faced Americans with
disabilities
for decades: lack of understanding. An unskilled relief volunteer
encountering a person who doesn’t know her own name, tells outlandish stories, flails
uncontrollably or exhibits any number of other "aberrant" behaviors, might
well respond in ways to incite further distress and discomfort rather than
recognizing
that this is a person with a disability who is suffering from the absence of
medication, equipment or even familiar surroundings.
Susan Fitzmaurice, a Detroit area advocate for people with disabilities, has
taken one step that could go a long way toward avoiding further devaluing
and
mistreating of people with disabilities who are caught in Katrina’s wake. Her
Web site,
www.katrinadisability.info,
is serving as a clearinghouse of information regarding the myriad
disabilities. If you want to know how to help or where to get information regarding
autism,
Down syndrome, muscular dystrophy, or a host of other disabilities, links are
probably on the katrinadisability site.
Information helps. Donations help. Volunteers who know how to assist in
appropriate ways are treasures beyond words.
Me, I’m always looking for the spot of hope, the lesson to be learned when a
bad thing happens. And there’s one loud and clear lesson to be learned from
this tragedy: Be prepared and be trained.
Whether we learn that lesson will be decided by whether we, as a nation,
think that all humans are worthy of rescue.
The Columbus Dispatch
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