It’s easy to get excited when Toyota announces a robot to help people walk.
In the 60 years since my left leg became paralyzed nothing really new in technology has been invented beyond the leg brace to help people like me.
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Olive Crane on the hustings (photo Guardian)
Another man hobbled to the door, telling Crane he didn’t understand why he couldn’t access disability support.
“You spend 15 minutes with people and you hear their stories. You’re problem-solving at every door.” Olive Crane quoted in Charlottetown Guardian Related – Committee recommends seniors get DSP coverage
Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty Tracy Odell, APDD
After years of talk, in May PEI adopted direct deposit for social benefits like Financial Assistance and Disability Support.
Many didn’t get the paperwork done and will have to pick up their cheques due to the postal strike.
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Elizabeth Berrigan invisible in death (roses from Island Deaths)
She was a tall, beautiful and intelligent Irish woman of a proud Prince Edward Island family.
Those eyes of hers could flash with wit, laughter and life.
They were also windows to a tortured soul who struggled for 30 years with mental illness and disability. Continue reading
Faye Martin, director of PEI seniors policy " We would hope that this is not the type of thing that would happen frequently"
There is more to the death of Elizabeth Berrigan than the Province of PEI wants to admit.
Nor is the media telling the whole story.
Berrigan was a person living with a disability in a subsidized government housing unit and largely abandoned despite her needs.
Berrigan’s ignominious and tragic end – alone and dead in her apartment for five months – should be a wake up call that things are not OK. Continue reading
60 year old woman lay dead in her apartment for 5 months (photo Google Street View)
A 60-year-old disabled woman was found dead in her apartment Tuesday this week in Charlottetown.
She died apparently in November 2010, almost five months ago, of natural causes. Continue reading
Scott Creighton of Tampa, Fla., is having his Social Security disability checks garnished by the Education Department to pay down his debt on student loans. Seriously disabled borrowers are entitled to get federal student loans forgiven, but the program for deciding whether they qualify is opaque, dysfunctional and redundant. (Brian Blanco/ProPublica)
By Sasha Chavkin, Cezary Podkul, Jeannette Neumann, and Ben Protess, ProPublica
This article is a collaboration among ProPublica and the Center for Public Integrity, which are independent nonprofit investigative newsrooms; and the Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism, at Columbia University.
It was co-published with the Chronicle of Higher Education.
Tina Brooks can’t sit or stand for more than half an hour before the pain in her lower back becomes intolerable. She suffers severe headaches and memory loss, and she has lost most of the vision in her left eye. Five doctors and a judge from the Social Security Administration have all determined that she is fully disabled and unable to work.
A former police officer and mother of two, Brooks fractured a vertebra in her back, damaged three others in her neck, and suffered a concussion when she fell 15 feet down a steep rock quarry while training for bicycle patrol.
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Salvation Army a Victorian era charity still needed to help the poor in Canada
During the coldest week of winter, people on Prince Edward Island who are living in poverty discovered that the Salvation Army has run out of emergency oil support.
Cuts to social programs including those for the disabled by Conservative UK Prime Minister Cameron are sending shock waves through the disability community and their caregivers.
Stacie Lewis
By Stacey Lewis, Guardian.co.uk – A year and a half ago, my daughter, May, was born severely brain damaged. After a healthy pregnancy, her injuries sent me into a paralysis of fear.
Staff at the hospital reassured us. When we left the special care ward, there would be a team of professionals, equipment, funding and respite care. We would not be alone. Continue reading
Disability Tax Credit is only worth $1,000 and less than 40% of taxpayers who qualify get it (illustration Stephen Pate)
Stories this week in the Toronto Star and on CBC Investigative Reports mislead the public into believing the cost of the Tax Credit is spiraling out of control at $5.9 billion annually.
The truth that the DTC costs taxpayers $415 million, 7% of the CBC report. Neither media would correct their stories.
Less than 40% of Canadians with disabilities who qualify are able to get past the gate keepers at the Canada Revenue Agency.
See - Dispelling the myths about controversial Disability Tax Credit
The CBC and Star purport to be running an expose of National Benefit Authority, a company which helps the disabled get their deductions. More about that later.
Both stories are full of whopping distortions. We emailed the reporters with the facts but they did not correct their stories. Continue reading