Why do we insist on making doctors or anyone in the healthcare system responsible for disability issues?
The reality is that disability is not a medical issue. The cause of it may have been and complications may also be medical issues, but the disability itself simply exists. Except for the very temporary kind of disability, there is not much that health-care providers can do to change the existence of a disability itself. Nevertheless, we require medical documentation to collect disability benefits, to get parking passes and bus passes, to prove the need for subsidized housing or to qualify for government health benefits and some employers require medical documentation when employees request job accommodations.
Health-care providers, for the most part, have a very poor understanding of what a disability is and what the disability system is. There is nothing in their training that prepares them for this. They often believe that the compassionate response to requests for documentation is to encourage persons with disabilities to apply for Social Security and stay home. They have no idea that this type of response could doom their patients with disabilities to a life of poverty and boredom.
How can this system be right?
Annette Bourbonniere
401-846-1960
Fax: 401-846-1944
Twitter: @AccessInclude
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