Daily Archives: 17 January, 2010

Meet a Contributor: Lauredhel

meet a contributor, , , , , ,

So everyone can get to know our contributors a bit better, we’ve decided to run a series called “Meet a Contributor”. Each Contributor will be interviewed by the others in turn.

Hi everyone! I’m Lauredhel. I live in Australia, where I live with a partner, our son, a dog, and a varying number of aquatic critters. I was born and bred mostly right here in the southwest of the country, with a couple of stints in the USA as a child and as a young adult. I’ve racked up a fair bit of formal education in my time – a medical degree, a touch of research science, some Auslan classes, and another degree in linguistics and anthropology. I have several ‘minor’ congenital anomalies and one issue that has caused chronic pain, but didn’t consider myself disabled until I came down with what’s typically referred to as an “invisible” illness around five years ago. I have been unable to work since.

My bloggy interests lie in a few areas – disability and disability rights of course, feminism, bad science and bad science reporting (and sometimes a blessed bit of good science!), language, the broad church of reproductive justice, violence and freedom from violence, the patriarcho-medico-industrial complex, media representation and popular culture, and lots more.

I also blog at Hoyden About Town, a women’s group blog based in Australia, and at my Dreamwidth journal. On to the questions, below the cut.

Continue reading Meet a Contributor: Lauredhel →

Recommended Reading for January 17th

recommended reading

Warning: Offsite links are not safe spaces. Articles and comments in the links may contain ableist, sexist, and other -ist language of varying intensity. Opinions expressed in the articles may not reflect the opinions held by the compiler of the post. I attempt to provide extra warnings for certain material present in articles, but your triggers/issues may vary.

Philippa Willitts at The F-Word: Let Go [also at incurable hippie]

It was pretty precarious. The city centre pavements were worse than I’d anticipated, but I did most of what I had to do, then waited for my bus home.

It was when the bus arrived that the presumably well-meaning man grabbed me. From behind. By the shoulders. The jumping-out-of-my-skin which resulted was far more likely to make me lose my balance than any amount of ice, and his holding onto my shoulders was hardly going to help with that.

It was only when he said, “Here, let me help you on the bus” that I knew I wasn’t being mugged.

jonquil at Rosemary for Remembrance – Doctor, doctor, tell me the news

Photophobia has been a diagnostic marker of migraine at least since the second century, when Galen described it. Yet it isn’t real until somebody finds the associated brain anatomy; until then, you might just be making it up. Chronic pain isn’t real until the doctor can see it.

Pfeh.

10Connects.com: Haitian doctor takes 100 patients into his home

Somehow, the house wasn’t damaged in Tuesday’s quake, which leveled nearly all the other houses in the hillside neighborhood of Port-au-Prince. Soon after the shaking stopped, neighbors started showing up at Claude Surena’s doorstep.

Now, he’s running a triage center, treating patients on his shaded patio with food and supplies salvaged from ruined homes.

The Seattle Times: ORCA transit-card renewal for elderly, disabled not so simple

For most people, the switch to an ORCA transit card is simple. They either apply online, get a subsidized card at work or tap the screen at any ticket-vending machine at any Sound Transit rail station.

But far more effort is demanded from people who are elderly or disabled.

Since December, thousands have had to find their way to a King County Metro customer-service counter downtown. Earlier this month, they waited in lines up to an hour or more to prove to the next available customer-service representative that they qualified for a discounted fare pass.

Ajith C. S. Perera at the Sunday Times (Sri Lanka): ‘Enabling elections’ for disabled persons: Accessible polling booths

The way a country treats its ‘dis-abled’ population and the extent to which they are fully-fledged respected citizens in attending to day-to-day normal life, is a realistic, internationally recognized, true measure of a country’s good governance and a far more telling indicator of society’s development than GDP. […]

Of the estimated 14.5 million eligible voters, around 2 million are physically dis-abled persons.

However, I am personally aware of many people and, that includes persons with debilitating ailments or conditions that often go unnoticed, persons with restricted mobility and/or visually impaired on the basis of short term or long term physical/sensory disability, elderly and even the pregnant, who although very much desired to go and cast their valuable votes have been reluctantly compelled to refrain from exercising this right, due to potential safety hazards and/or physical barriers either in approaching their polling stations and / or accessing their polling booths – i.e. the right to access, another vital public facility.

Time: The 50 Best Inventions of 2009: The $20 Knee

Now a team of Stanford engineering students has designed a knee that’s not only dirt cheap — just $20 — but also mimics the natural joint’s movements. Developed with the Jaipur Foot group, the JaipurKnee is made of self-lubricating, oil-filled nylon and is both flexible and stable, even on irregular terrain. The device is being tested in India; more than 300 people have been fitted so far.

The JaipurKnee comprises five pieces of plastic and four nuts and bolts. It requires no special tools and takes just a few hours to manufacture

More information in the Stanford University News: $20 artificial knee for patients in the developing world

Haiti

class issues, justice, medical practice, race, Uncategorized

As you’re likely aware, an immensely destructive earthquake struck Haiti on January 12, 2010. It was centered in the capital city Port-au-Prince, home to over 2 million residents, and destroyed buildings, food and water systems, hospitals, and seemingly the national government. The information and photos coming out of the country have been disturbing and heartbreaking. The full scope of the damage – to the people, to the country – has yet to be determined, but it is surely catastrophic.

The effect of the disaster on Haitians with disabilities is similarly devastating. Although the earthquake and subsequent building collapses happened so quickly that neither PWD nor TAB had an opportunity to get to safety, conditions after the quake are likely disproportionately difficult for PWDs. The streets are covered in debris and destruction, there is no electricity, and people need to scavenge for any available food and water. Additionally, literally all of the medical facilities in the city were destroyed in the quake, so there is no access to medications, doctors, anything. Even now, four days after the quake, there is extremely limited emergency care in Port-au-Prince, with people traveling 6 hours by car to one of the few undamaged hospitals in the country for emergency surgery.

In addition, there are an untold number of people who are newly disabled due to the catastrophe and its aftermath. Most of the injuries are open compound fractures, where broken bones have penetrated the skin. These require immediate surgery to re-set the bone and close the wound to prevent infection – which injured patients haven’t been able to get. These people haven’t gotten food and water, much less antibiotics.

Dr. Jennifer Ashton reported that “most of these patients have not eaten in three days. They are profoundly dehydrated and they have crush injuries to their long limbs, upper arms, body and, in some cases, open pelvic fractures, which set the scene for some very serious and life-threatening infection. In addition, when limbs get crushed like that, if they don’t have surgical management immediately, they risk losing that limb as the swelling and infection really take off and that’s what we’re seeing.” Ann Curry reported that desperate doctors were performing surgery on injured children without anesthetics. It is also likely that a number of survivors will develop Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. After the tsunami of 2004, PTSD rates averaged about 10% in the population.

It’s important to note that not everyone injured in the quake is subject to these conditions. American citizens were evacuated by U.S. Air Force planes and other chartered planes to be treated in United States hospitals. This Anchorage woman had her lower right leg crushed by rubble and was then evacuated to a hospital in Miami, where her foot was amputated. These conditions are affecting people without the money or resources to get adequate care. And they are exacerbated by the poverty and unstable infrastructure that existed prior to the quake. (Which the U.S. and France and other colonial powers created and sustained, but that’s more than I can get into with this post.)

It is easy to feel overwhelmed by this, but there are things you can do to help:

FINANCIAL DONATIONS

  • Portlight Strategies, Inc. focuses on Haitians with disabilities. It works with a community of Catholic nuns who will be opening shelters in Port-au-Prince for PWDs, and donated funds will go to “defray shipping costs of medical and clinical equipment … and for the purchase of food and other shelter supplies.”
  • Healing Hands for Haiti has been providing prosthetic and orthodic services and supplies to Haitians with disabilities since 1998 and will be deploying staff and equipment to help PWDs.
  • Christian Blind Mission, an organization focused on PWDs in the developing world, partners with local organizations in a number of medical facilities throughout Haiti. Donations will “support its Partners in the affected area with emergency assistance and long-term rehabilitation and reconstruction efforts.”

IN-KIND DONATIONS

  • Aid for AIDS is collecting medical supplies, including unused medications. They are especially interested in antiretrovirals to help Haitians with AIDS whose treatment has been interrupted by the disaster. There are drop-off points throughout the US, or you can send them to Aid for AIDS at 120 Wall Street, 26 Floor
    New York, N.Y. 10005.
  • Partners in Health is also seeking donations of these specific items: “need specific items urgently:  orthopedic supplies, surgical consumables (sutures, bandages, non-powdered sterile gloves, syringes, etc), blankets, tents, satellite phones with minutes, and large unopened boxes of medications. No small quantities or unused personal medications will be accepted.“

Please also remember to take care of yourself during this time. It’s been easy for me to spend hours reading articles, looking at photos, watching footage, and feeling increasingly overwhelmed and helpless. Don’t lose track of your own health and well being.