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Disabled unimpressed with gov't

Sunday with an announcement from the Minister of Community & Cultural Affairs that Government was embarking on four major projects to make life better for the Island's disabled residents.

These include a special survey to determine the accessibility of Hamilton's buildings; a look at ways to the issue of transportation for the disabled; a 911 emergency system for the hearing impaired; and ways to provide employment services for the disabled and potential employers.

Are the disabled excited about any of this, or have they heard it all before? Here are the views of two of them -- one blind, the other wheelchair-bound.

Both want meaningful changes in their daily lives.

This is Access Awareness Week -- a time, supposedly, when the community becomes more mindful of improving the quality of life for the physically disabled.

Indeed, the Minister of Community and Cultural Affairs, the Hon. Leonard Gibbons, stated in the House of Assembly last Friday that Government's goal was to remove physical and mental barriers preventing disabled people from participating fully in community life.

Well, you could have fooled the likes of quadriplegic Mr. Tommy Outerbridge, one of many whose mobility is restricted to where a wheelchair can go.

"Access Awareness Week is a PR scam to smooth our feathers, that's all it is,'' he snorted. "We've been hearing this stuff for years and years and nothing, nothing has been done.'' "Pre-election window dressing'' is how another dismissed the Minister's lofty declarations.

Time and again the plight of the physically handicapped has been brought to the public's attention, largely through the media. The late Miss Margaret Carter, founder of the Bermuda Physically Handicapped Association, was vociferous in her complaints and worked assiduously right up to her death for improvements.

Throughout her life, Miss Carter never saw the lending section of the Bermuda Library or the House of Parliament -- and neither has Mr. Outerbridge. It took years of persuasion to finally get an access ramp into the foyer of City Hall, and an elevator to its upper level.

Even then, the solution was only a partial victory, for there is still no wheelchair access to the west exhibition room, which houses an art gallery, the lavatories, or internally between the theatre and the foyer.

Fifteen months after it opened, the purpose-built Bermuda National Gallery, also in City Hall, still has no wheelchair access to its upper levels, although a special lift was promised.

Its absence, in fact, specifically precludes the Outerbridges from supporting the Gallery.

"What they propose is a stair lift which will be kept in a closet when not in use. People wanting it will have to wait while it is brought out and someone figures out how to work it. With no disrespect intended, that someone could be a person who is not competent to set it up,'' Mr. Outerbridge said.

"I would like to be a member of the National Gallery, but it is difficult to justify supporting an organisation which is still inhospitable to the physically handicapped. It is a wonderful building, but it is sad that the handicapped situation is an afterthought. If they were fully committed to the handicapped, they would not have opened the Gallery without it being fully accessible.'' An avid reader, Mr. Outerbridge -- like all the wheelchair-bound -- has never been able to peruse the upstairs shelves of the Bermuda Library. The new mobile library, which is wheelchair accessible, has proved no solution either because of its restricted hours and places of operation, and the fact that the physically handicapped need transportation to get to it because it doesn't come to them.

"It is such a pain being tied to meeting the mobile library at certain times in certain places,'' Mr. Outerbridge explained. "I am completely dependent on my wife to take me places, so if it is not convenient for her on the day the library is nearest to our home, we would have to drive miles to find it somewhere else. There are lots like me. If you don't have transportation you can't get to the mobile library -- so I haven't been to it yet.'' Like his wife, a physiotherapist whose experience includes working with paralysed patients in Britain's famed Stoke Mandeville Hospital, Mr.

Outerbridge has little truck with the oft-touted excuse that a lift of some kind could not be added to the exterior of the main library building.

"That's hogwash,'' he said. "Government now says `budget constraints', but when we were in the boom times they weren't rushing to put it in either.'' It is the contention of the physically handicapped that all public buildings and public transportation should be wheelchair accessible. Ideally, they would like similar access to cinemas and restaurants just like everyone else.

While recognising that some older buildings present difficulties in achieving their dream, they are cautiously pleased that new building codes must include wheelchair accessibility.

Having waited so long for any progress, however, the Outerbridges are somewhat sceptical about the regulations regarding renovated buildings.

"They say that if a building is more than 60 percent renovated, it must be made wheelchair accessible. But what if someone decides to renovate 50 percent one year and 10 percent the next to get 'round the requirement?'' While the tendency has been to blame architects for deficiencies in the design of new buildings before the latest regulations came into effect, at least one, who asked not to be named, defended his position.

"I always designed new buildings to be fully accessible to the physically handicapped. It was the owners who came along and deliberately modified the plans to cut their costs,'' he said. "It was very disappointing, to say the least, but what could I do?'' On the issue of making all public transportation accessible, the Hon. Ralph Marshall, Minister of Transport, admitted that Government had "no time frame'' for this. While his Ministry wanted to do something about the public buses in the long term, it was "a very complicated thing''.

"It is very difficult to schedule buses unless they are all alike,'' he explained. "If we had, say, ten buses that the handicapped could use, they would not necessarily be where the handicapped wanted to be picked up.'' In the meantime, the Minister -- in conjunction with the Bermuda Physically Handicapped Association and other ministries -- is "looking at ways to marshal the present assortment of small, already-adapted vehicles under one authority so that they can be better utilised''.

Although Mr. Outerbridge is happy with some improvements in access for the physically handicapped - the new City Hall ramp and renovations to a popular Bermudiana Road restaurant being two examples -- like many of his peers he has little faith in the promises of politicians, period.

"They don't give a damn. They're hard-nosed, selfish people,'' he protested.

"Let's face it, the people who pass legislation also own property and hold a lot of the cards for renovating buildings. While I'm not suggesting that this is the case, could it be that they don't want to pass legislation which will ultimately cost them money? You have to wonder why nothing gets done.'' So, while Access Awareness Week may make the rest of us feel good, it seems that years of frustration and disappointment have left the physically handicapped unconvinced that this year's promises will significantly improve their lot any time soon. Meaningful progress is what they continue to seek.

HEY BIRD! -- Bluebird advocate Mr. Tommy Outerbridge meets a bird of a different feather during a recent visit to the Bermuda High School. Following an accident in pursuit of his hobby, quadriplegic Mr. Outerbridge is an outspoken critic of access inadequacies for the physically handicapped.