In a country that is supposed to be fair and equal, there are now minority groups who are institutionalised, marginalised in the pandemic. Please spare a thought for those who aren't, because of lifting restrictions.
Why are we not hearing from disabled groups?
Why are we not hearing from disabled groups lobbying, so their members can play an active part in society, instead of them having to continue to self-isolate? Where are the voices looking after people with disabilities and the vulnerable, whose rights and interests have been adversely affected by lifting restrictions?
Why do we not we hear about groups lobbying for those interests, as lifting measures has widened and deepened the exclusion of disabled and the vulnerable from society?
Scope’s Coronavirus Disability Report findings are:
Reduced independence and anxiety are also cited as being an issue. Three months has now turned into years. I am part of the 86% very worried about the effect the pandemic is having on my life. It is why I write about it so much on my blog. I am ‘home.’ My life is now centered around my home.
The findings are stark. It is not enough for charities to write about the stats and not lobby the Government, to be able to effect change for those who need them to. It is a human basic right.
Being institutionalised
With lifting restrictions, I like many thousands of disabled people are now institutionalised, cut off from society. I still ask myself how can this be? Disabled people are now marginalised and institutionalised. We all have the right to be able to live our lives.
Feeling exposed
With autism, I have never felt so unsafe and exposed as I do today, having to navigate the pandemic, living with a mental disability and with no restrictions to keep me safe. Feeling hemmed in, continues to be difficult and makes me feel anxious; not knowing when I can comfortably get back into my life.
Trying to find an acceptance
I would like to think I can find an acceptance on most things, but how do you get your head around the fact that you deal with a disability and through lifting restrictions, you are home for the foreseeable?
Another important blog you highlight. It is so important this situation is highlighted and the injustice brought to people's attention by disability advocates like you.
These figures in the Scope study are a national disgrace. 9/10 disabled people are worried about the impact of the pandemic on their lives and 6/10 like you, are not leaving their home. It is not surprising that you feel unsafe and also let-down.
The UK government should be ashamed of its handling of the pandemic and their treatment of the vulnerable and high risk.
I hope that by highlighting this issue things do change moving forward and so that measures are introduced so the disabled get treated as fairly as able-bodied, and this discrimination addressed allowing you to have a life like everyone else.
Until I started writing about the pandemic, truthfully I didn't fully understand the pandemic, or the patterns of abuse from government.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, and for anyone interested in reading my blogs on the 'pandemic' I continue to highlight different aspects of the pandemic on here.
They make for sombre reading, but it is important to understand. The pandemic isn't just affecting the disabled. But let's be truthful, we have all been affected mentally and emotionally by its handling.
I am also in the process of writing a book about it, due to be published in November. I feel so incensed and being 'home' for the foreseeable is exacerbating just how I feel.
It's #FollowBackFriday so why not join me on my Twitter feed, I'd love to meet up with like minded individuals, and let's continue the conservation there. https://twitter.com/TheCPDiary
I am completely dismayed and sickened by people's behavior towards Covid. As you have made it clear, people with disabilities are bearing the blunt of this ignorance.
I just hope your words are tearing through the hearts and minds of competent politicians and policy makers. Someone somewhere should consider the danger people with disabilities are facing.
The absence of common sense and empathy in the human race is beginning to scare me.
Thanks Tim. Your response is exactly why I continue to write. What started as something for me, to try to understand my own trauma, my life, has turned into something much bigger.
Respectfully, although these issues lie at the heart of politicians and policy makers, people have changed. We are not the same people going into the pandemic, as we are coming through the pandemic and contrary to what politicians are telling us, we're no where near out the other end either.
Yes, you're right Tim. The human race is showing signs of intolerance, we are lacking empathy and failing to support, only thinking of ourselves, although there are exceptions and until we decide we are going to do better, I can't see anything changing.
Where you say 'the absence of common sense and empathy in the human race is beginning to scare me.' Yes, I am sure like many caring people in the pandemic, I have also stayed awake many a night, worrying about it.
Where my blog has the capacity to bring people together, for us to want and do better, It feels like apathy has set in. But it doesn't have to be that way. Outside of politics, we have to want to be and do better.
As a disabled person I rely on others making the policy decisions to keep me safe. To be sidelined in this way is sickening and scary. To be cut off from my life is absolutely terrifying.
For the policy makers who make that choice, it says everything about their mental health and for politicians who aren't the policy makers and who don't speak out, and who are flocking like sheep, it says a lot about their mental health too.