From the Boston Globe (6/26/09):
2 flagship hospitals to upgrade accessibility
Millions pledged for improvements
By Stephen Smith, Globe Staff
In a landmark agreement, two of the nation’s most prominent hospitals are pledging to spend millions of dollars to resolve complaints that ill-suited equipment and sometimes-indifferent medical workers make disabled patients feel unwelcome.
Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard-affiliated teaching facilities, promised to scour every ward for evidence of physical barriers and equipment inaccessible to the disabled. Staff members will undergo training to make sure they understand - and respond to - the needs of patients who have trouble walking, seeing, or hearing.
The hospitals’ financial commitment is substantial: The Brigham expects to spend $12 million on equipment and other capital improvements over the next six years; Mass. General does not have an estimate of how much it will devote, but the hospital’s president said the figure would be in the millions.
The money will be used, in part, to buy exam tables, mammography units, and X-ray machines to better accommodate the disabled. It is also expected that the hospitals will purchase lifts and scales that can weigh patients in wheelchairs...
Wonderful! I hope this occurs nationwide. Our local clinics and hospital have only one table that raises and lowers for things like OB-GYN exams and they have to be reserved. Meanwhile, I can go to any massage business or private physical theerapy clinic and have that type of table.
Posted by: Linda Halvorson | July 11, 2009 at 01:12 PM