Life with disabilities is hindered by disruptions and excluded by barriers
Penny Pepper wears her bloody, broken heart on her tattered sleeve in this powerful photograph that captures the limitations society places on people with disabilities.
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Lately, life with a disability has weighed on me at a time when I have other challenges, personal and emotional, and this month I hope you will allow me to wear my bloody, beaten down heart on my tattered sleeve and wallow in the frustration for a short while.
It’s a cliché that life as a disabled person can be Kafkaesque, but the worst part is when you find the courage to break free from the limitations you place on yourself. You fight to break down obstacles you didn’t create, and every time you step foot on the battlefield there are heavy consequences. Over the past few weeks, it’s been crushing for me.
My experience at this establishment, once again embroiled in a skirmish with an old rival, a major hotel chain, was not only puzzling but also highlighted the sickening hypocrisy that permeates much of the “inclusive and accessible” claims made by many hospitality companies.
Let’s go into the corridors of a Kafkaesque bureaucracy. This is my dark, masochistic game: to confront these people, to find out where things are going wrong, and to find out why.
To do this from Hastings I needed to stay overnight to visit my mother in Devon.
I chose the hotel, and here’s where it gets infuriating: the hotel’s accessible rooms are spacious, as are the rooms with wet room showers, and, as far as I can tell, they also provide the general facility of a bed raiser in case the standard bed is too low (too low for me).
Prior to arriving, I had gone through all the usual steps: booked an accessible room with a proper shower, made the call to request the hotel’s famous “elephant’s foot” bed-raising device and for my PA’s room to be as close to mine as possible.
The fundamental right to intimacy
Penny Pepper
I then sent at least one message via the hotel’s dedicated access email and received a courteous reply within 24 hours. The access team called the hotel and confirmed that all my requests would be met. Don’t worry, it’s all been taken care of, brave disabled guests!
It certainly took courage to arrive here tired and thirsty, holding my breath, refraining from smiling, and waving the email at the reception desk. “You’re all set, Pepper,” the two receptionists told me. “We’ll give you your keys.”
“So, my PA’s room is next door and the elephant’s foot is on my bed as requested?” The first receptionist nodded. The second receptionist looked uneasy. “Yes. Your PA’s room is three floors above you.”
I was exhausted. But I said, this is unacceptable. I told the receptionist that these requests had been made in advance. Taking a slow breath, I promised myself that I wouldn’t swear, but I deserved someone to hear the depths of my anger. The second receptionist limped away. The first told me to go to my room, assuring me that it would be okay.
There was a fuss because they tried to move my secretary’s room closer to mine and I had to push it away.
Why? Why doesn’t this work every time? My mind began to form a satirical story to relate this experience to able-bodied people who literally take this process for granted.
My room had no elephant feet, so I couldn’t get in or out of bed. I was exhausted, angry and exhausted, and immediately used the notoriously glitchy voice-to-text feature on my phone to dictate my furious complaint to the hotel. If that didn’t work, they would do something about it.
After a while, the manager found me. He apologized profusely and initially gave me a free breakfast voucher. I said, “I don’t do breakfast,” even though I knew I sounded grumpy. But can you blame me?
The room was later refunded. I accepted the consideration and asked the manager why, from a site perspective, he would think something like this would happen not once or twice, but in such a confusing and repetitive pattern. As I stated in my email to the hotel, I am completely devastated and outraged by this poor treatment which reeks of hypocrisy at its worst. The manager blamed it on poor communication and new staff. He promised me that everything would be fine when I returned in a week, and it did.
Most of the time, but not always, these failures of access are institutionalized and rarely related to individuals — and when they are, they are due to inadequate training — and ultimately, money, low wages, and rapid staff turnover. But that’s no excuse to write off my needs.
Speaking of money, when I was a child my specialist ran a clinic on the world famous Great Ormond Street, which is now funded by a hotel chain to the tune of millions of dollars.
It’s strange to have left my adorable disabled childhood behind as a working adult who needs to travel. How much more can I explain? How difficult is this?
What this hotel chain needs is disability equality training led by a disability trainer, not “disability awareness” training, which I saw the hotel chain mention in its public apology to another disappointed disabled guest.
All this happened in the same month that The Sun ran a front-page story about TV personality Sophie Morgan, the first wheelchair contestant to appear on BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing. “The Cha-Cha Chair,” the headline proclaimed, so ineptly that it would require a separate column to analyze it.
It reflects how we are casually attacked, often out of control and without an equal response, and I am tired and infuriated by it all.
When will the world grow up and embrace us?
We reached out to Premier Inn for a response but the silence was deafening.