Disabled persons face many challenges, but when they need healthcare and are refused, how do they handle this challenge?

A physician, Dr. Lisa Iezzoni, a professor of medicine at Harvard, who uses a wheelchair, began to consider her situation and that of others with regard to access to healthcare. Telehealth may have served some of the population needing accommodated services, but not all. Her questions led to research that revealed the roadblocks to care.

Training programs that are supposed to increase empathy or a better understanding of how a disability affects someone’s life are like science experiments that don’t truly reflect the real world. Try walking for a day with a pebble in your shoe may make you more inclined to view a disability differently, but try to plan a vacation where a wheelchair or walker user could easily enjoy the stay. Do you know how many parks have mud or gravel paths? Try using a wheelchair or walker there. How about a beach? Sure, they can sit on the sidelines because few, very few, can afford a chair that goes over the sand. And you’d need a truck to take the specific sand-adapted wheelchair anywhere, but not on a plane or ship.

Think about bed and breakfast places or small hotels. Know what you need? Yeah, an elevator. You’d have to haul a wheelchair up and down stairs each time you wanted to get to your room or to some activity. Each time I think of a cruise with a person in a wheelchair, I am reminded of Leon Klinghoffer.

So, when we think of how healthcare professionals discriminate against or show disdain for disabled people, it should fire you up to help foster more understanding, but we need effective programs.

Currently, however, a sizable percentage of doctors and healthcare professionals still act in a discriminatory manner against people with disabilities or outright refuse to provide medical care. Ways in which that happens are quite simple; they say they have no openings for new patients.

In terms of ethics, this behavior transgresses their Hippocratic Oath, an age-old vow to defend human life and provide care regardless of creed, status, or physical problems. By failing to fulfill that oath and performing their duty of care obligations to all, they violate it, which has consequences for everyone’s wellbeing as well as ethical repercussions that have an impact on wellbeing.

There is blatant discrimination towards individuals with disabilities within the healthcare system. “The ADA requires all medical practitioners to provide ‘full and equal access to their health care services and facilities for people with disabilities.’ This includes building accessibility, such as creating spaces that are designed to be user-friendly for everyone, including people who use wheelchairs, canes and mobility scooters; assisting with transferring patients from chair to examining table; and providing sign language interpreters and other accommodations.” How many medical offices have lower exam tables?

Discrimination against disabled people can take many various forms, ranging from little insults and condescending behaviors to a lack of understanding for the emotional pain they endure and even outright refusal of care.

I read that the Florida Cleveland Clinic was fined one thousand dollars a day until they complied with a judge’s order to provide sign language interpreters. The clinic ultimately paid $15,000.

Research has shown that because of assumptions founded on ableist beliefs, disabled patients interacting with healthcare systems frequently feel devalued and degraded. Getting around the healthcare system can present many challenges that only serve to increase hopelessness—challenges that people without disabilities simply do not understand or accept.

I know of a town where members of a disability advisory committee couldn't get into the building where meetings were held because they couldn’t open the doors. The local politicians complained that it was never designed with disability door openers and that it would be financially difficult. One member complained repeatedly and had to attend on Zoom. Now the doors are being modified.

Although laws like the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) are designed to shield people with disabilities from discrimination, their effectiveness is still questionable. Doctors have an unassailable duty to put patients’ health first and toss off preconceived assumptions that jeopardize everyone’s dignity, regardless of their level of competence.

Discrimination against disabled people in healthcare is a result of many different circumstances. One of these factors is a knowledge gap among healthcare professionals; medical schools and nursing programs typically offer little instruction regarding the subtleties of disability care, leaving healthcare professionals to deal with the practical issues that occur when treating impaired patients. Teaching about disability awareness and accommodations shouldn’t be viewed as an afterthought; rather, it should be integrated into routine medical practice.

The inaccessibility of medical facilities is a major factor in the persistence of discriminatory sentiments. Inadequate infrastructure that prevents disabled individuals from entering a building gives the subliminal message that they should be treated as second-class citizens, in contravention of both ADA laws and general social norms.

Stereotypes and biases related to disability might also have negative effects on this problem. Because of their preconceived notions about the patients they care for and their prognosis, healthcare professionals frequently underestimate the resiliency, recovery, and personal growth of disabled people, despite the fact that they have had their autonomy taken away. This undermines collaborative decision-making while also undermining autonomy over choices regarding one’s life, one’s body, etc. Unchallenged one-sided narratives or presumptions only serve to reinforce bias in the healthcare industry.

Healthcare facilities must undertake structural adjustments to ensure full accessibility of services for everyone in all forms. Small ramps with steep inclines are nothing more than window dressing.

The government should implement laws that forbid medical discrimination against handicapped people, and healthcare practitioners need to take part in disability-specific training programs that will teach them how to offer top-notch care to disabled people. In order to achieve disability inclusion both within healthcare itself and within society at large, policymakers and healthcare practitioners must work closely with disability rights activists and groups.

We talk about change in many ways, both verbal and physical, and that should only underscore how remiss we have been up to this point. No one should have to wait for what they deserved for years but were never provided.