Everyone knows no one needing a wheelchair gets an ultrasound!

[trouble]

Anyone want to help me figure out why the waiting area for ultrasounds at my local hospital isn't wheelchair accessible, being too narrow?

Comments

[synecdochic]

That's like the time I was in the dentist's office getting a panoramic xray of my jaw ... which was set up to do so with the patient standing, and couldn't be moved down past a certain height.

Because people in wheelchairs don't need panoramic xrays. Or kids. Or short people.

[amadi]

I had a similar experience at the dentist. I don't use a wheelchair but I do use a cane and the panoramic was set up so that I'd have to stand in the middle of this large room with no support. I was told my cane might "pose a problem." Fortunately, I can stand without it for a few minutes but for anyone in a chair or who can't stand without assistive devices, it was a mess.

[firecat]

Let's see. The hospital designers might assume ultrasounds are only for pregnant women, and no one in a wheelchair is ever going to have sex, let alone decide to bear a child, so...?

[supermouse]

Damn, that was going to be my comment.

[eloriane]

But in the movies, they always put pregnant women into wheelchairs!

Although that could very well be movie shorthand for helpless/ not-a-person/ forget-she's-giving-birth-focus-on-the-DUDES as opposed to, y'know, actual medical practice.

But still. Accessibility FAIL.

ps. hi! I'm a temporarily-able-bodied lurker!

[treeowl]

Nah, some of hospitals have bizarre "all patients must be in wheelchairs when moving from one area to another" policies. I don't know why.

[eloriane]

Oh, I didn't know that. Though maybe that's why I was put in a wheelchair when I broke my hand in first grade?

Of course, that only makes it weirder that part of the hospital would be inaccessible.