Wheelchair Patients Find Obstacles at Doctor’s Offices
March 19, 2013 Leave a comment
Wheelchair Patients Find Obstacles at Doctor’s Offices
Almost one-fourth of doctors are unable to accommodate and treat patients who use wheelchairs more than 20 years after the passing of the Americans with Disabilities Act, a study found.
About 22 percent of 256 doctor’s offices surveyed said they couldn’t assist people in wheelchairs, with most of those saying it was because they weren’t able to safely transfer the patient to an exam table, according to research published today in the Annals of Internal Medicine. Lack of access to the building was a secondary reason, the researchers said.
The Americans with Disabilities Act, passed by the U.S. Congress in 1990, is aimed at ending discrimination for people with disabilities in everyday activities including access to medical care facilities and the services provided there. Today’s findings are one of the first to show where barriers to medical services remain for wheelchair-bound patients, said Tara Lagu, the study’s lead author.
“This is affecting a large number of patients, certainly the 3 million who use a wheelchair, but many more than that who have difficulty getting up to an exam table,” said Lagu, an academic hospitalist at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, Massachusetts, and an assistant professor at Tufts University School of Medicine, in a March 15 telephone interview. “The point of the study is to help doctors realize what the problems are and to help them become more aware of the Americans with Disabilities Act and to identify what the difficulties patients who use wheelchairs are having in accessing health care.” Read more of this post