Health and Safety
Well, this week I got a letter from Childline (the back up plan for if respite cannot happen), and here is an interesting dilemma!
Ok, I cannot volunteer there because they cannot take people who are unable to come down 5 flights of stairs, as in a fire they would be a health and safety risk.
Now, which is this - a health and safety issue I should concede to - or is it discrimination? Imagine if that led to me not being able to work in lots and lots of places, because they were on the 5th floor? What is the limit - is it you can only work in jobs where you can be on the ground floor?
Throughout the day, interesting conversations took place. The deputy at the pixie club coincidentally decided that we would do a fire drill. It's not a situation I've worried about too much at work, as when the adrenaline kicks in, I could get me and the pixies out, and it's all ground floor. Stairs have been the lifetime nemesis. I have always had difficulty going down them - way more than up. It feels like my brain is trying to refocus when I am doing it. Is it my wobbly leg syndrome? Is it my inability to do sequential activities quickly syndrome? Is it a lack of depth perception (how do you test for that then?)
At the end of the fire drill, a 5 yr old pixie plaintively asked the deputy what would happen if I (that is me, Miss Fairy Sparkle), could not get out and I got burnt to death? (Not because I'm disabled, just a what if question).
(Yeah, that puts a heavy perspective on it, when a 5 yr old asks with big eyes).
Not a problem, says the deputy, that would never happen - she would bodily carry me out.
And this was AFTER her appraisal.
Later, a close friend and I were discussing the matter, and he said, he would look up the law for me on discrimination, what with him having studied law, but um, yes, he would find it hard the thought of me being somewhere I couldn't get out easily.
Not once has he ever seen from me anything other than the slowest and most awkward looking descending action on the stairs. Bit of a hard symptom to hide/abnormality/freakery/boring to watch one that.
Then later, my close friend's mum who is a home help, spoke about how she has been told in a fire, just to leave her clients in the house, get herself out and that's that.
Reader, I am stumped. If I was able to write a disclaimer saying that I was ok with taking the risk, and would hold no one responsible for my crispy demise, well why couldn't I do that? How are all the many other disabled people to work if this is a 'get out' clause? If there was a lift they could still say nope to me, because well, you're only to go down stairs in a fire. So, beyond raising Scotland to the ground and starting again, tricky one, on the old access front.
However - is that a fair action? I know what it takes to make some tough health and safety decisions - and people might argue they would feel guilty letting you risk your life like that. Now, this is where living in Glasgow, puts this into sharper focus - this is the land of tenements and high rises, and dodgy lifts is it not? If I want to be really safe - best not visit any friends any more ever again.
When you have been homeless, and you get offered unsuitable accommodation but hey-ho at least it's not up flights of stairs you might not manage - well that's all right then.
As a single person - that disclaimer would be signed in a jiffy. If I were partnered, well, I would consider hard to be honest. No matter which way I look at it - 5 flights of stairs really is the best way to demonstrate - yep, my leg's are crap, and I should have got a refund at birth : ) (Yes that was also a CONTROVERSIAL thing to say).
Or have I just been on the dishing out end of health and safety for too long?
Ok, I cannot volunteer there because they cannot take people who are unable to come down 5 flights of stairs, as in a fire they would be a health and safety risk.
Now, which is this - a health and safety issue I should concede to - or is it discrimination? Imagine if that led to me not being able to work in lots and lots of places, because they were on the 5th floor? What is the limit - is it you can only work in jobs where you can be on the ground floor?
Throughout the day, interesting conversations took place. The deputy at the pixie club coincidentally decided that we would do a fire drill. It's not a situation I've worried about too much at work, as when the adrenaline kicks in, I could get me and the pixies out, and it's all ground floor. Stairs have been the lifetime nemesis. I have always had difficulty going down them - way more than up. It feels like my brain is trying to refocus when I am doing it. Is it my wobbly leg syndrome? Is it my inability to do sequential activities quickly syndrome? Is it a lack of depth perception (how do you test for that then?)
At the end of the fire drill, a 5 yr old pixie plaintively asked the deputy what would happen if I (that is me, Miss Fairy Sparkle), could not get out and I got burnt to death? (Not because I'm disabled, just a what if question).
(Yeah, that puts a heavy perspective on it, when a 5 yr old asks with big eyes).
Not a problem, says the deputy, that would never happen - she would bodily carry me out.
And this was AFTER her appraisal.
Later, a close friend and I were discussing the matter, and he said, he would look up the law for me on discrimination, what with him having studied law, but um, yes, he would find it hard the thought of me being somewhere I couldn't get out easily.
Not once has he ever seen from me anything other than the slowest and most awkward looking descending action on the stairs. Bit of a hard symptom to hide/abnormality/freakery/boring to watch one that.
Then later, my close friend's mum who is a home help, spoke about how she has been told in a fire, just to leave her clients in the house, get herself out and that's that.
Reader, I am stumped. If I was able to write a disclaimer saying that I was ok with taking the risk, and would hold no one responsible for my crispy demise, well why couldn't I do that? How are all the many other disabled people to work if this is a 'get out' clause? If there was a lift they could still say nope to me, because well, you're only to go down stairs in a fire. So, beyond raising Scotland to the ground and starting again, tricky one, on the old access front.
However - is that a fair action? I know what it takes to make some tough health and safety decisions - and people might argue they would feel guilty letting you risk your life like that. Now, this is where living in Glasgow, puts this into sharper focus - this is the land of tenements and high rises, and dodgy lifts is it not? If I want to be really safe - best not visit any friends any more ever again.
When you have been homeless, and you get offered unsuitable accommodation but hey-ho at least it's not up flights of stairs you might not manage - well that's all right then.
As a single person - that disclaimer would be signed in a jiffy. If I were partnered, well, I would consider hard to be honest. No matter which way I look at it - 5 flights of stairs really is the best way to demonstrate - yep, my leg's are crap, and I should have got a refund at birth : ) (Yes that was also a CONTROVERSIAL thing to say).
Or have I just been on the dishing out end of health and safety for too long?
Labels: childcare, disability, discrimination, health and safety, pixies
posted by Miss Fairy Sparkle at
1:41 PM
2 Comments:
No question about it, this is *definitely* discrimination, you should definitely object.
Re. fire evacuation, the usual procedure is to have a "safe place of refuge" for disabled people to remain in the event of a fire alarm. This is usually between two fire doors or something like that, the idea being that the fire can't get to you where you are and you stay there until the fire brigade rescue you.
In practice, if it was a real fire, I'm sure they'd find a way out...
Health and safety is *not* a valid excuse for discrimination. It's up to them to find a solution.
Go get 'em ;-)
I used to work on the 2nd floor of a building and there was a guy in a wheelchair who worked with us. The evacuation process was to put him in a special chair thing and two trained special-chair-thing operators (ie colleagues) would push him down the stairs in a controlled manner. Nae bother.
And anyway, the last time we had a fire drill the mass exodus of people going down the stairs took AGES, you'd have had no trouble keeping up. Stick out your elbows and go with the flow.
There's no way you should have to limit yourself to jobs on the ground floor.
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