While many of our fellow citizens labouring with disabilities do very well for themselves, it's pretty safe to say that people who require wheelchairs to get around are coming from a point of disadvantage when it comes to earning a regular income.
Consequently, extensive support systems have been put in place to help people whose disabilities make them dependent on wheelchairs, to deal with the barriers thrown in front of them.
Some of those barriers are physical, accessibility issues related to the limitations of wheelchairs, while others are societal. Some people just don't get that those among us who need our help deserve it, by dint of the fact that a disability, whether physical or otherwise, does not diminish a person's humanity.
Many people with disabilities freely offer that their greatest barriers are those thrown up by false impressions born of ignorance.
They're not looking for sympathy - just a bit of human understanding.
How ignorant can people be about the barriers the disabled face?
Let's ask the folks at Fraser Health, who decided to burden wheelchair users in their facilities with $25/month "maintenance" fees. To add insult to injury, 60 per cent of clients in affected facilities depend on wheelchairs, many donated and not even provided by Fraser Health itself.
Let's ask the province that passed legislation last fall to allow this travesty - that same government has now boosted its top-earning bureaucrats' salaries, each to the tune of $35,000 per year. Just three of those raises total more than the $100,000 that Fraser Health expects to take away from its disabled clients.
It's astounding that the one place our disabled brethren should never have to want for understanding has thrown up yet another barrier for wheelchair users.
