A Day In The Life of a Wheelchair User

To start off, let me tell you a little bit about me and my disability. My name is Oisin and I'm 18 years old. I'm a wheelchair user from Dublin and I'm a new member of Project Patriarchy. I was born with a disability called Spina Bifida. I'll be doing a brief awareness campaign on our PP's social media pages within the next few days explaining exactly what Spina Bifida is but for the purpose of this article, I'll just tell you what I usually say when people ask me how I ended up in a wheelchair, ''I was born with a big hole in my back where some of my nerves were supposed to be".

So to make a long story short, I have little to no feeling or movement in my body from the knees down. I also have various issues with certain organs. I have been what some people call a ''full time wheelchair user" since I was 5 years old. This means I've had to learn to do basic tasks a little differently than most people.

Challenges I Face as a Wheelchair User:

One of the key challenges I have had to face over the years whilst living with my disability in Ireland, is public transport. Public transport has always been a big headache for me whenever I try to leave the house. Nowadays due to the pandemic, I hardly ever leave my estate, never mind take the bus, but before Covid-19 I often used the bus to travel to school, or go into town or while going out with friends, etc. This meant I had to plan my route hours in advance, no matter how short the trip would be.

Did you know that there is space for 90 ''able bodied'' people on a bus and yet there is only one wheelchair spot? Let's take a look at the statistics for a moment:

- 13.8% of Ireland's population have a disability and 40,000 of those people are wheelchair users.

How many of those 40,000 wheelchair users do you think use the bus? How many of those people go to work, school, college?

So let's say you're a wheelchair user and you're trying to get from point A to point B. You can use the bus, train, or taxi. You get to the bus stop, but wait... the ramp is broken, or there is another wheelchair user in the disabled space on the bus.

What now? You go to the train/dart/luas station, but wait... you can't get on because, law states that you're required to ring the Irish rail 4 hours in advance in order to receive assistance for accessibility to the train/dart/luas. Maybe you can't even get up to the right platform because the lift is broken.

Okay, so now you try to order a taxi, but guess what? According to your MyTaxi app there are no wheelchair accessible taxis in your area and there is no way that any driver with a standard taxi is going to go through the hassle of folding up your wheelchair and putting it in the boot of the car.

All this sounds extremely tiring and difficult doesn't it? Believe it or not all of the above has happened to me on the same day!

How can you help?

I know I probably came off sounding angry for most of this article but that really isn't the case. Speaking as a disability advocate, I know that our community feels as though they have been overlooked by Irish society, which is something I can understand. Abled-bodied people are busy living their lives. They don't notice if the lift isn't working because they use the stairs, they don't notice the potholes and the really high curbs throughout the city center because they can just step over them.

So here are some tips on how you can help make the life of a wheelchair user a lot easier:

• PICK UP YOUR DOG'S POOP!

If you’re a dog walker then please remember to clean up after your dog’s been to the toilet on the pathway or in the long grass. If you neglect to do this, it can be very problematic for wheelchair users as it generally tends to stick the tires of our wheelchairs.

• Don’t stand in the wheelchair spot on the bus:

Even if there isn’t a wheelchair user on the bus, standing in it can make it hard for us to navigate through the bus and figure out which is the best angle to park at. Don't put wheelchair users in an unnecessarily annoying position where they have to ask you to move, cause then you’re ‘’that guy’’.

• Don’t park in a disabled parking spot unless you have the disabled parking badge:

It’s that simple really.

• Do your research and read up!

If you’d like some more facts and statistics on disability rights in Ireland you can visit the NDA (National Disability Authority)'s website.

For information on how to get into wheelchair sports like, basketball, rugby, table tennis, or athletics you can visit: www.iwa.ie

For more information on campaigns and awareness projects being done in support of the disabled community, visit my website Awareness Overload or Email: Officialawarenessoverload@gmail.com

If you're reading this and you live in Ireland and you want to help change the way the disabled community is neglected in this country, then here's my advice- stop and look around for a minute. Put yourself in my shoes/tires and ask yourself, ''If I were in a wheelchair, what challenges would I be facing right now?"

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Source Cited:

All statistics were gathered from the central statistics office of Ireland:https://www.cso.ie/en/