Schoolkids need lessons in disability

Primary schools need to do more to change the way children think about disabled people, according to new research from the University of Leeds.

The study found that typical misconceptions held by children include disabled people are not able to work, they are unlikely to have a partner or get married, disabilities are passed onto children and disabled people have tragic lives, often cut short by their impairment.

The research also found that learning materials, particularly children’s books, frequently reinforce those stereotypes.

Researchers talked to groups of children in year two (aged 6-7) and year six (aged 10-11) in six schools as well as sending out questionnaires to 500 primary schools. Quotes from children that answered the questionnaire revealed that some feel disabled people wouldn’t get a boyfriend or girlfriend because “people people think they’re ugly” and one is quoted as saying “disabled people can’t work. They have to go in the house and just sit down. And they can watch TV.”

Dr Angharad Beckett, leader of the study and a lecturer at Leeds University, said: "We looked at what non-disabled children know about the lives of disabled people, and what primary schools were doing to tackle misconceptions about disability. We found that although some schools are tackling this issue, many schools are doing very little, sometimes nothing."

She added: "As of December 2007 all primary schools in England were supposed to have a Disability Equality Scheme in place that, amongst other things, included the school's plan to promote positive attitudes towards disabled people. Only 30% of the schools surveyed actually had a plan in place that included that dimension".

A Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) spokesman said: "All schools have a duty under the Disability Discrimination Act 2005 to promote equality of opportunity between disable people and their peers, eliminate unlawful discrimination and promote positive attitudes towards disabled people.

"This is vital so that schools can challenge any perceived attitudes towards disabled people and receive the support they need to help ensure that all children are able to fulfill their potential. The DCSF are working hard with organisations such as Mencap and the National Aids Trust, as well as National Strategies, to raise awareness further amongst schools of their duties,” he added.

Read original story at Disability NOW

The healthcare debate is gathering momentum because people are beginning to understand what the government is intending.

BY DR. MARK MOSTERT, Institute for the Study of Disabilities & Bioethics (ISDB)
President Obama’s Medicare Welcomes the Grim Reaper, Part II

What the government is intending, of course, is controlling who lives and who dies, who gets treatment and who doesn’t.

I’ve already addressed this intention via the President’s repeated public statements, and how certain phrases are repeated, mantra-like, so that they will become embedded in the public mind.

That’s why the President is constantly in media-blitz mode, repeating the same themes time after time. He does that because he wants you to believe certain things and not believe other things. He’s intent on bending public opinion to his will.

My favorite propaganda theme? Well, the President has a way of explaining things about healthcare in terms of “making people healthier.” Over and over again, in print, all over television, town hall meetings, and YouTube chats, the drumbeat is healthier is the administration's goal.

However, as far as I can tell, nobody has ever challenged the President with this question, so let me try:

President Obama, you repeatedly emphasize how your heathcare proposals will “make people healthier.” What does that mean for people who have no hope of becoming healthier? What of people with chronic conditions, disabilities, and the elderly?

I’m not holding my breath for an answer.

So, we need to look for clues. Let’s say among people on Medicare (the elderly, people with disabilities, and those with chronic health conditions).

Let’s go to HR 3200, the 1,017 behemoth healthcare bill that many of our public representatives arrogantly admit to not reading.

Despite what some of our representatives say, the language of the bill is quite plain. The clues are there, but you must read carefully not only for what is said, but for what is not said.

Exhibit 1: Advocates insist that the bill says absolutely nothing about end-of-life counseling being “mandatory.” Well, the bill first describes what this ‘advance care planning consultation’ will look like, and then says this:

the term ‘advance care planning consultation’ means a consultation between the individual and a practitioner described in paragraph (2) [doctor, nurse, or nurse practitioner] regarding advance care planning, if . . . the individual involved has not had such a consultation within the last 5 years . . . An advance care planning consultation with respect to an individual may be conducted more frequently . . . if there is a significant change in the health condition of the individual, including diagnosis of a chronic, progressive, life-limiting disease, a life-threatening or terminal diagnosis or life-threatening injury, or upon admission to a skilled nursing facility, a long-term care facility (as defined by the Secretary), hospice program.

So, if you’re “healthy,” such a consultation will be every 5 years. If you get less healthy, you might have more consultations as your state of health declines.

Here’s the deception that the pro-death lobby doesn’t want you to understand: If this bill becomes law, there is no way that it will not be a mandatory requirement.

Why??

Because nowhere in the bill does it say that the “consultation” isOPTIONAL.

Now, if a law says something is not optional, then there’s only one other way to interpret its legal intent: Yes, mandatory.

Wouldn’t surprise me at some point, if this becomes law, and people finally wake up, they might hear the administration say the following:

Well, we never said it would be mandatory, I think we can all agree on that. We just made sure that it wasn’t optional.

Gotcha!!!

Doublespeak is not new, but it’s still chilling.

President Obama: Potential For Getting Healthy? You Win!!

by Dr. Mark Mostert June 29,2009

Let’s be clear: President Obama’s push for healthcare reform will significantly change the way people with serious medical conditions, especially among the elderly, those with disabilities, and the terminally ill, will be treated.

Well, not treated, actually.

There’s no doubt that the President’s message, hammered relentlessly at every turn, is made in starkly economic terms – that medical care is very expensive, costs need to be controlled, and resources have to be allocated in new ways.

That’s half the pitch.

Here’s the other half: Because of this problem, it’s important to see which groups of people disproportionately consume the lion’s share of medical care dollars.

We already know: People with disabilities, people with serious chronic illnesses, the terminally ill, and the elderly.

The president hasn’t gotten around to making his economic case about people with disabilities yet, but he has in terms of the elderly and the terminally ill. My take is that among the targeted groups, it’s the disability community that will raise stiff opposition. The elderly and the terminally ill are more vulnerable, and are less likely to protest.

Let me put the president’s strategy more bluntly:

"Medical care is expensive. Some people get a lot of care, others very little. Many people who get a lot of expensive care are the elderly, those with disabilities, and those who are probably not going to ever be as healthy as they used to be. We don’t have the money to pay for every expensive procedure for everyone, so we need to decide who gets the care that’ll give us most bang for the buck."

The President doesn’t say it this way, instead he uses a euphemism it’s hard not to like: Health. We must give medical care to make peoplehealthier.

Note what’s not said: If you have no prospect of getting healthy, then the government needs to step in and decide whether or not you are worth getting the treatment.

President Obama drive this point home in his interview to the New York Times in April (all italics are mine):

And part of what I think government can do effectively is to be an honest broker in assessing and evaluating treatment options. And certainly that’s true when it comes to Medicare and Medicaid, where the taxpayers are footing the bill and we have an obligation to get those costs under control. And right now we’re footing the bill for a lot of things that don’t make people healthier.

The president drummed the “Health” theme again in his ABC News Health Care Forum at the White House last week:

But here's the problem that we have in our current health care system, is that there is a whole bunch of care that's being provided that every study, every bit of evidence that we have indicates may not be making us healthier.

And later:

And in terms of how doctors are reimbursed, it's going to be the same system that we have now, except we can start making some changes so that, for example, we're rewarding quality of outcomes rather than the number of procedures that are done. And this is true not just for doctors, it's also true for hospitals.One of the things that we could say to hospitals is, reduce your readmission rate, which is also often a sign that health outcomes have not been so good.

Now, we've put forward some specific ways of paying for the health reform that we talked about. About two-thirds of the cost would be covered by re-allocating dollars that are already in the health care system, taxpayers are already paying for it, but it's not going to stuff that's making you healthier.

Prediction: If the President has his way, expensive medical care will be redirected to the winners in this money game, those who have the potential to be healthier.

If you have a disability, if you’re elderly and in poor health, or if you have a severe chronic or terminal condition, you lose.

This post was taken from Disability Matters

Don't Put Off Living! LIVE TODAY!!!

OK, I know there's a million cliches like "Live Today Like It's Your Last", "Seize the Day!" and all the others just like those; but this time I mean it! =D ha ha

Seriously though, for anyone who lives with chronic pain, chronic illness, is a caregiver to someone with a disability, elderly, etc., etc. this is a really huge thing and not so easy to do.

When my daughter was born with Spina Bifida it was non-stop action from the second she was born - a month in the NICU with many tests, procedures and 2 major surgeries, then emergency surgeries almost every 3 months in the first year...... I don't think I could even list everything. She's 13 now and has been hospitalized 12 or 13 times and has had 10 surgeries (we're moving toward 11), she's had general anesthesia many more times than she's had surgeries. She went to 3 or 4 kinds of therapy, per week, for about 9 years straight(both private and in the public schools).

Needless to say, and like anyone in my situation knows, there is never a dull moment...and when there is a dull moment you are laying in wait for the "other shoe to drop".

From the time my daughter was born until she was 2 it was especially crazy. During these first couple of  years anytime I thought about doing something I told myself, and others, that i was going to wait until things settled down a bit. I figured the frequencies of the surgeries and everything else would have to slow down eventually. Around the second year I realized that "THIS IS OUR LIFE!". It's possible that I/we could put things off for the rest of our lives if we wait for everything to settle down. 

Since then I have tried to remember that I have to do what I want NOW! There may never be a better time. Obviously, in these situations you do have more restrictions than the average person, but you can't give up on your life and what that means to you. 

If you live with chronic pain you may never have a day that you wake up without pain, but you still can make the choice to "live" anyway. Same goes for caregivers, people living with disabilities, illnesses, or anything else. Fifty years could go by and we have spent the whole time "waiting". Things may never get better; if they do then that's great but it can't be used as an excuse not to live our lives to the fullest. That means something different to everyone one of us. It could mean inviting your friend over for lunch even though you are almost certain you will have to cancel due to your chronic pain. It may mean registering for a college class even though you can only get someone to care for your mother(or other family member you're responsible for) one hour a week. 

Some things you just have to make happen and take a risk. I know how scary it can be, but it gives you such hope for what your life can/could be and is so encouraging. It really is worth it! Try it! You might like it! :)

People With Disabilities in Brazil

I was laying in bed this morning thinking about Christmas dinner (which is tomorrow). I was thinking that we should go around the table and say what we are grateful for. This year we weren't at home for Thanksgiving and our daughter really missed doing that. I started going through the list, in my mind, of all the things I am grateful for. For some reason I started thinking about the people with disabilities that I saw when I was in Brazil last year.

Everywhere we went, I saw people with disabilities sitting on the sidewalks begging. It was seriously painful to see - seriously painful. All I could do was think about my daughter and the people I know who have disabilities. My daughter goes to school, of course, and by law they have no choice than to teach her. The adults I know with disabilities have jobs just like everyone else.

There's two things that were upsetting to me about seeing people with disabilities begging on the street. The first thing was the obvious one - Why is this happening? The other thing is how everyone without disabilities reacted to them. I am referring to both the people walking by, who I didn't know, as well as the people who I did know and I was with at the time.

First let me tell you that these people I saw on the street were not what we would think of as severely disabled. (Of course I have a friend, who lives here, who is considered a quadriplegic and is without speech and uses a "stick" on her head to type on her magnavox and talk to people.......and she has a job and it requires her to travel on occasion.) At any rate, I thought it necessary to point out that while you are imagining people begging on the street, they are not severely disabled, by our standards. One man I saw had the disease/disorder that Michael Jackson has. I don't remember the name, but it's where the pigment of your skin basically goes away gradually, in patches. I apologize, I am not that familiar with that diagnosis.

Anyway, I saw this guy begging on the street one day and the next day I saw him walking up the street and going to a coffee shop and ordering some coffee. All I could think about was that this guy may be begging on the street because he cannot get a job anywhere. Another time I saw a woman who had one of her legs amputated from the knee down. She walked with crutches, when she wasn't sitting and begging. Again I thought - In our country you would either walk with the help of your crutches or you would get a prosthetic leg and then either way you would go get a job. How many people, in this country, get part of their leg amputated and then have ALL of their options for their life taken away because of it?

Obviously I am talking very generally here, so please don't feel it necessary to point out the cases where this is not the case. I do understand that there are people with disabilities in Brazil who do have jobs and that there are plenty of people with disabilities in our country who are not able to find a job - I'm just pointing out the vast difference between what we're used to in this country (the US).

Of course I do not know what the over-all situation is for people with disabilities in Brazil (if anyone has any info for me I'd love to hear about it). What I was told, by the people we stayed with, was that the government takes no responsibility for people with disabilities. They said that there are some very small private charities that help people with disabilities.

One day we visited with some people who were selling their farm goods at a fair. There was a lady across the street (the one who had her leg amputated) who I watched the whole time we were there. Everyone who walked by her never even looked at her. They didn't say "No" to her when she asked for money, they didn't smile at her - nothing. It was as if she was invisible.

Of course, here, when we see people begging on the streets we give the excuse that there are plenty of charities to help people so we don't need to help them at the time. Whether that is a good reason or not, in Brazil that is not a reason at all because there is very little help for people with disabilities.

The lady I watched be ignored on the street - I gave her 10 reais (about 5 dollars). I don't speak portuguese but I know that she thanked me on and on and on. All I could do is smile and say in portuguese "it's nothing". I got the feeling that the people I was with were very uncomfortable about me taking the lady some money. I think the general feeling amongst people is that maybe it's not right but it's the way things are and they just accept it...and go along with it.
I felt like a dork (for lack of a better word) for giving this woman 10 reais. It seemed so petty and pathetic. I suppose it's more than she gets from the occasional person who offers her something, but it still seemed like so little given the circumstances. Of course we spend 5 dollars at Starbucks and give little thought to it.

I've never forgotten the people I saw there. I just felt like in such a big city that seems so similar to what we're used to, it is hard to believe that these people are spending their days sitting on the sidewalks begging for their only income.

THE MESSAGE FOR TODAY: 

 Be grateful for what you have and take nothing for granted...and help others when you can.