My name is Bikash Chapagain. 45 years ago (in 1979) I was born in Nepal, a small landlocked mountainous country between China and India. I still remember my childhood memories. Nostalgia always haunts me. It is pretty normal in one’s life, isn’t it?
As a child, my four limbs, feet and hands were a little weak, however, I was strong enough to walk and run. At the age of five, I was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy. At the age of thirteen, I could not walk at all. There was no hydrotherapy treatment in Nepal but with the support of a life jacket, I was able to walk and float in the normal swimming pool (non heated).
Whilst studying my Bachelor’s degree at the age of twenty in Nepal, I read the essay “The Declaration of Independence” by Thomas Jefferson. I used to contemplate and was very much touched by the lines: “all men/women are born equal. Life, liberty and pursuit of happiness are the three inevitable human rights endowed by nature.”
Sitting in my manual wheelchair, I always used to be astonished by these words and what these basic, fundamental and universal human rights meant for my life!
Twelve and half years ago, I received the Australian Government’s Endeavour Vocational Education and Training Award to pursue a Diploma of Community Services Work at Southbank, Brisbane. It was during this time that I discovered a wheelchair accessible, heated swimming pool. In July 2014, I was involved in a terrible motor vehicle accident in front of PA Hospital in Brisbane that put me in hospital recovery for nearly 4 months. For encouragement and motivation in life, I used to attend professional development training and resilience in Brisbane. This helped me to cope with my physical condition, excruciating back pain and challenged mental state.
In 2015, I got 4 appointments via Medicare for hydrotherapy. The hydrotherapist, Michael, inspired me and assisted me to walk without a life jacket and independently (but under supervision). I gained so much more confidence to walk in the heated pool with its comfortable temperature of around 32 degrees celsius. Brisbane Lions Club also gifted me a 7 day pass, whilst PA Hospital’s hydrotherapy and Mater Hospital’s physio also provided me with sessions of hydrotherapy.
Despite my physical disability, I am grateful for the wheelchair accessible infrastructures offered in the heated pool – such as the waterproof wheelchair, ramp and disability friendly bathroom. These gave me the opportunity and ability to access the pool with the assistance of my physio or, on some days, just my wife. I was also able to be independent in the bathroom to shower and to transfer and get dressed.
In 2018, I became an NDIS participant and started getting support workers. In my time with them, it’s always my preference to attend a heated pool, to walk there and to learn how to swim and enjoy playing beachball in the pool. From June 2018 until today, it is with the support of NDIS that I can go to a heated pool almost everyday.
I can now swim independently. Swimming has helped me to better understand my back pain, body pain and how to deal with my stress, anxiety and depression. Swimming is supporting me to cope with and beat my physical and mental conditions.
My two children and my wife are also good swimmers. My own personal experience has been instrumental in living my life to the full, and I recommend hydrotherapy as a great blessing and boon for everyone, from all walks of life – even small kids, elderly people, pregnant women and people with limitations of neuro motor skills like muscular dystrophy, cerebral palsy and spinal cord injuries too. I have even noticed that many people with visual impairments, hearing impairments and intellectual disabilities also enjoy swimming. I am so appreciative to have been introduced to swimming and to have it play such a big role in my everyday life and a life that I always advocate and stand for. Swimming has broadened my horizon and widened my perception of life.
I will be grateful for my swimming until I take my last breath. Swimming is my faith, my belief in life. When I stand and walk in water, I call it life. When I swim independently, I call it liberty. And when I relax in water and my skills and amazing buoyancy allow me to float independently, I call it pursuit of happiness.
Together, these attributes bring me achievement, meaningful purpose and help me to live an extraordinary life.
Often it can take time to find answers, let alone the right support. Finding the right medical professional who works with you and understands enough, and being able to access appropriate support, can take years. Or maybe answers and support are available in good time. Either way we all have questions. When the disability or long term answers are newly acquired, life will never be the same again. The more answers we get the more questions we have – and there is always something that accompanies those questions – fear and uncertainty. So we ask, can we use that fear to our advantage?
What is fear? 1: An unpleasant, often strong emotion caused by anticipation or awareness of danger 2: anxious concern 3: reason for alarm.
Fear can interrupt processes in our brains that allow us to regulate emotions, read nonverbal cues and other information presented to us, reflect before acting and act ethically. This impacts our thinking and decision making in negative ways, leaving us susceptible to intense emotions and impulsive reactions (Louise Delagran, MA, Med).
Fear in this state becomes our enemy. The high level of cortisol causes long term damage to our physical health and when left unchecked we become controlled by our emotions and instincts – which never works in our favour – within ourselves, family or when working with the medical profession. But fear can be my friend, and we work together for my good.
I have learned to sit with fear and pain. Don’t fight them. Fighting makes it worse. Just sit with them and breathe. This creates a still place. Yes, you may be enveloped by fear, but this is good because now it’s not attacking you. In this state you can ask how your fear and pain can guide you. There is a strength in being able to exist alongside them. We may be afraid of the unknown, but we become empowered by listing the unknowns and seeking information about them to be more prepared. One benefit to this is having a better idea of what questions to ask doctors etc. This is your life, so become comfortable with seeing yourself as the boss. But accepting that we may not have complete control over every aspect of each stage is also important. We can still live a full life in whatever way that manifests for us individually.
So take slow breaths, seek information, find the little things each day to delight in, celebrate all the little wins and take breaks from advocating. And challenge your idea of what living a full life means. This looks different for each of us.
PDA is now recognised as an independent Disability Representative Organisation (DRO) with equal standing to the big movers, having contributed to Disability Advocacy Network Australia’s joint submission on the NDIS Bill.
Our organisation has worked hard to earn its place at the table and to stand equally with the major forces on Australia’s disability landscape.
We do this for, and with the help of our Members, and are incredibly grateful for our community and what we together bring to the conversation in our efforts to defend, uphold and support the right to live equal, inclusive and (extra)ordinary lives.
Not yet a PDA Member, but want to sign up for free?
Go to pda.org.au/membership/
We look forward to welcoming you to our community.
I applied for a job. A small job offering 7 hours a week. That’s all. I did not get an interview and I am not sure why.
Could it be that I am now 59 years old?
Could it be that I have too many degrees and graduate diplomas?
Or could it be the elephant in the room – that I have a disability?
I was upfront in my application that I have a congenital disability (from birth), but my application was solid and outlined my extensive work experience.
A friend told me that she never discloses her disability when applying for a job. So was this my mistake? Should I have hidden my disability like it was something to be ashamed of?
For seven hours work a week they received 50 applicants! Is this an indication of the jobs market now? Has our boom of low unemployment disappeared?
Whatever the economic reasoning, the thing is that high unemployment for people with disability has not disappeared or changed in 30 years.
“People aged 15–64 with disability are more likely to be unemployed than those without disability. They are also more likely to be unemployed for longer.” [as reported by the Australian Institute for Health and Wellbeing in 2024]
On average, it also takes a university graduate with a disability 3 years longer than their contemporaries to gain employment. The percentage of people with disabilities who have superannuation is also minuscule.
So what does this mean for people with disabilities – who are amongst the poorest of minority groups in Australia today and suffer social discrimination? It results in a lack of financial stability, with a flow on effect to the social indicators of disadvantage; poverty, housing stress, food stress and mental health stress. Alongside these consequences, the sense of worth of a person with disabilities is undermined every time they apply for a job and are rejected. When the rejection letter pile reaches the (glass abled) ceiling, that’s when they stop trying.
Even though a person with disability may be highly educated or highly skilled, these social indicators do not move if the person is unemployed. On average, PWD die 10 -15 years earlier than those without disability. This is assisted because we simply cannot rise above the unconscious, or dare I say conscious, bias that people with disabilities are less and thus unworthy.
The benefits of having meaningful employment for PWD has been explored and persued by successive governments for over 30 years and yet, as mentioned earlier, unemployment rates for PWD have not changed.
“Our Government has committed an additional $227.6 million, bringing the total funding to $5.4 billion over the next five years to help more people with disability prepare for and find suitable employment including through a new specialised disability employment program commencing on 1 July 2025.” [Reported by the Department of Social Services in 2024]
This is fantastic news. Finally Government acknowledges the problem and is throwing billions of dollars towards getting PWD into jobs and accessing an under-utilised employment pool. Unfortunately though, this step forward is overshadowed by Government’s very own under-employment of PWD. Did I mention the job I applied for was a state government position?
I am not saying that Government should not spend billions of dollars on a huge social issue that is broader than just job agencies and training courses. What I am saying is that Government should step us and put in place dedicated programs for PWD to gain employment in the public sector. If you are going to talk the talk on disability employment, then walk the walk.
When speaking of Government as a whole, we need to understand that Government is made up of a conglomerate of agencies, both at federal and state levels, and the culture of these individual agencies needs to be accountable for any bias against PWD and work towards correcting these prejudices or oversights.
I am not suggesting anything new here. PWD have long advocated to have more Government jobs dedicated and provided to PWD. If a position is disability related, surely it makes sense to have a person with the most lived experience in that job? I.e. a person with a disability.
However, it is not just Government that has an issue with employing people with disability. Our own disability organisations have horrendous track records of employing PWD within their own organisations. Of all the peak bodies organisation for disability, almost none have a CEO who is disabled themselves. The policy officers who write policy for these organisations, and present them to Government, also predominantly do not have a disability themselves.
Sadly, my disappointment at not being deemed worthy of an interview for a seven hours a week job becomes a drop in the ocean of the disappointment felt by PWD everyday, enduring rejections and building on feelings of unworthiness and trashed self esteem.
In a conversation with a disabled friend, I was told “I’ve just given up. I can’t stand the hurt from rejection anymore and will just live my life as best I can on the pension.”
Australian Federation of Disabilities (AFDO) reported that 53.4% of Australians with disability are employed, compared to 83.2% of non-disabled Australians – keeping in mind that employment can mean as little as 1 hour/week and that the 88% of people on Disability Support Payments are not counted (AFDO, 2024). It’s not rocket science to see that the vast majority of PWD do not have jobs and that the scale of unemployment for PWD is huge and that corrective action is long overdue.
Most PWD want to work, be contributing members of their communities and get paid for it. Volunteering or sitting unpaid on a board is one thing, but actually getting paid for the work you do brings a whole level of life satisfaction and self value.
Australia has a long way to go in truly becoming a welcoming country that embraces and values all its people, and this includes the culture of disability where our great community is portrayed as being less – deserving pity and paternalism. How will we ever reach equality if we are never given opportunities? I grieve that I was not good enough for seven hours a week and this grief is amplified by the millions of fellow PWD who are discarded in the “not-employable” pile each and every day.
Support workers are NOT you friends. However, treating them as such is a trap that many people with disabilities find themselves in.
Often people with disabilities spend more time with their support workers than they do with family and friends. Support workers are there on the days that you just need to talk. They see us at our worst. They see everything. They are privileged to the most personal information about us. They are there when we make phone calls. They are in our homes all the time.
So how do we draw the line in the sand? How do we separate the worker from the friendship?
Is it our responsibility as participants to make sure we are ‘absolutely professional’ in our undertakings with support workers or is it the responsibility of the support workers themselves? Or does responsibility to set the standard lie with the companies for whom they work?
When is the line crossed?
You have a support worker’s phone number so you can message them. They go to Coles, and you have forgotten to ask them to get something. Sounds very reasonable to be able to contact them in this case.
What about Facebook or other social media platforms? You go to a show, a play or the movies together, so should you have the ability to tag the support worker? Probably not. They are paid to accompany you on an outing. They are NOT your friends.
The real danger here is, as described by support companies as ‘grooming’, that some of us participants are more vulnerable than others and the risk of grooming is real. I once heard about a participant being taken to a support worker’s house to buy a gaming console. That really set off alarm bells for me.
But then again, if a support worker had something for sale that I wanted to buy, isn’t it reasonable that I can buy it? After all it’s on the open market. It gets messy when we look at a participant’s capacity. Are they able to make resonable decisions or are they able to be coerced?
But does a one size fit all approach work when it comes to rules and professionalism guidelines? Should we always err on the side of the most stringent rules around the separation of work and friendships? This is where the potential for power imbalance needs to be really taken into consideration. Who in the relationship has the most power?
We can not label all people with disabilities as incapable of maintaining a healthy boundary with support workers, but loneliness and isolation can make the most astute of us vulnerable.
It’s food for thought! These people are the most important people in our lives, so of course we are going to bond with some of them more than others. If they were all standoffish and resolutely ‘professional’, would our lives then be that little bit less.
This also speaks to the isolation of people with disabilities, how we are excluded from friendships and why we rely on friendships with our support workers. Our needs for access make it more difficult to build relationships with those that do not have disabilities. Our differences can make others feel unsure of us, sometimes even fearful of us, making them uncertain or uncomfortable about how to simply be with us. Our society has made us different, we can be viewed with mistrust and from this our isolation and loneliness is compounded.
I have had some of the most wonderful, supportive support workers come and go in my life. Some I have developed a strong bond with. They are more like family than support workers. It is my hope that they have valued the trust and faith I have put into their care and friendship.
Life is forever moving forward and changing, and it is inevitable that some of those relationships had to end. Distance and other opportunities has seen my most loved support workers leave my life. And there in lays the issue “most loved”! I am able to separate our relationship as transient, however when we are together they are the most importantly people in my life. Sharing my highs and lows.
My capacity to separate them as workers means I have not been emotionally harmed by the loss. It is sad, but we all move forward to the next big thing. It also speaks to the quality of the support worker and their understanding that even though they are well loved, we all move on, and it has always been with happiness for the future that our relationships have ended.
I would like to thank the amazing support workers that have come and gone in my life and made it worth living. Yes, your friendships have been immeasurable to get me the hard times. Thank you Wendy, Michelle, Trenton and a host of supporting cast support workers that have made my life better. I won’t name my current support staff who also mean so much to me (the company they may work for might get antsy).
Not all support workers are created equally though, and some are just meant to be more than support workers and for a time they are best friends.
Participation makes my life worth living.
I am a joiner. I want to belong and contribute to my community.
As a person with disabilities this is really important to my health and wellbeing. It is well documented in psychology that those who are engaged and participate in a wide circle of social activities do better at health indicators, their mental health is better, their overall health is better.
So how do we encourage people with disabilities to participate?
We provide safe and accessible physical sites that allow everyone to be engaged.
The simplest of infrastructure can be a barrier to participation. How many venues have we all been to that do not have a disability accessible bathroom? Or are an accessibility fail because of that one step that stops a person with mobility restrictions from entering. It’s getting better, but there is still work to be done.
My personal pet hate is when NDIS providers offer services to people with disabilities, yet their understanding of disability diversity is limited. They simply do not think of the simple things like a bathroom for us to use. But what if it’s more sinister than that and they only want to provide services to a certain cohort of participants? That’s dark and scary to think that not only are PWD now commodified for their NDIS packages, but providers can pick and choose the easiest to service for maximum profit.
My second real concern is that the mainstream still have a lot to learn too. Now I will expose my shame and embarrassment. Recently I was fundraising for a big charity and attended the nationwide charity event in my city. I was excited and keen. I had fundraised really well and was proud of my efforts to contribute to this well deserving organisation.
The event started and I was impressed with how accessible it was. I was assured a parking spot and the terrain of the event at the start was perfect. I felt involved and proud to be contributing alongside everyone else in the community.
Then things went bad. We veered off the path at the very end and found ourselves on to a dirt track heading up a hill. It was goat country. My off road scooter was just not prepared for such an adventure and, after being grounded on a large rock, some wiring was dislodged and I found myself stuck.
Two members of the public and some volunteers of the organisation had to push me up a very steep hill and then carefully hold on to me as we negotiated the steep descent.
I felt humiliated and embarrassed that I was no longer an equal member of the event, but someone who required assistance to complete the course. It was hard work for the volunteers and the community members to get me to the finish line and I felt terrible, and truly mortified that this had happened. We left the event and I slunk off early holding my wounded self close to heal.
Always solutions based and putting my discomfort aside, I reached out to the organisation and together we developed a plan to make the event accessible next year. Organisations don’t know if we (as people with disability) don’t tell them what we need. My experience will make it better for people in the future.
So I guess my point here is that the hard work to make our world more accessible is still up to people with disability. Access is only as good as the person designing it for an organisation. If that person has limited experience with inclusion policies, or indeed if the organisation does not have an access and inclusion policy, it throws all the hard work and at times embarrassment back on to people with disabilities.
As a community we are all still learning, but I often wish that we were already there with access issues being a thing of the past and assurance that we can all contribute and be engaged in a safe and welcoming world.
Welcome to part two in a series of blogs focusing on some of the assisted technology and other items that I received NDIS funding for – enabling me to become a bit more independent and to continue to do the things that I like to do and, most importantly, helping me to achieve my goals.
I have been a NDIS recipient since 2018 and one of the first things granted in my first plan was a lightweight manual wheelchair. A wheelchair was one of the critical items I needed as a lower limb amputee. Many lower limb amputees are considered part time wheelchair users.
I need to use a wheelchair mainly whilst outside in the community, as a prosthetic is not an option for me and walking on crutches can be tiring at times. I also need a wheelchair to shower. I use it to transfer in and out of the shower as using crutches in wet areas is very dangerous. I also use a wheelchair to carry lightweight items as this is easier than trying to carry items whilst on crutches as both hands are needed to use them.
I do have a wheelchair that was issued through my state’s assisted tech program, but the one I was issued with was a very basic model with some minor customisation for my needs. One of the reasons I applied for a new wheelchair was that my current one had no tiedown loops to carry the chair with me in it in a wheelchair taxi or on a long-distance wheelchair accessible coach service. I found this out the hard way. Having booked a seat on a particular service, and having mentioned at the time that I needed wheelchair accessible space, I was told “no problems there”. However, when I arrived to board the coach which was “wheelchair accessible”, the coach driver took one look at my chair and said “this has no tie down loops so I cannot secure your chair and it has to go in the luggage area”. So I had no choice but to get out of the chair and use my crutches to struggle up the narrow steps into a seat.
After a great report, a couple of quotes and in very little time, I took delivery of a new HELIO wheelchair complete with many accessories including crutch carrier and an under seat luggage net to carry a small amount of shopping without effecting the centre of gravity. Most importantly it had tie down loops. The wheelchair is very lightweight and easy to fold flat for transporting in a normal car boot. It is easy to self-propel and glides smoothly on many surfaces.
Over the next year I customised this wheelchair some more with a power assist device known as a “Smoov One” that attaches to the rear of the wheelchair to assist with getting up hills or help when fatigue sets in. This device just moves the wheelchair. Steering and braking is still needed by the user, but that’s a minor issue. Another add-on was a set of off-road tires for getting across grass gravel etc if needed. I used to enjoy hiking to get to some nice locations and these wheels help me somewhat to see some of those sites again – but not all. I have an off-road Hand Cycle for more rugged areas (Check out my previous blog and video for that).
I have included a short video on some of the features of the wheelchair and I will include a video on the Smoov One power assist in another upcoming blog.
Stay tuned.
My own experience.
In 2022, and as a result of a poorly constructed council footpath, I fell from my mobility scooter and landed on the road. Fortunately this accident occurred outside a repatriation hospital, so I was quickly attended to by nursing staff from the hospital. An ambulance was promptly called and I was taken to the local public hospital, where I was diagnosed with a broken finger and bruised ribs.
Imagine how, as an able bodied person, you would cope with this sudden pain on your left side from bruised ribs and and sporting a splint on your hand. It’s painful, but you are still able to walk around, go to the toilet and for the most part go about your normal day to day living – in pain, but still able to move.
Now imagine the same scenario where you do not have the use of your legs. To move you need to use your arms to push, pull and lift your body around, BUT your ribs are so painful that doing so is excruciating. This also impacts on the injury’s rate of healing through constant movement and having to disturb those injured ribs and finger.
You beg the hospital for help. A rude nurse actually scoffs that you are in hospital for a broken finger. Your frustration at her lack of compassion and understanding is such that you whip the sheet from the bed back and proceed to lift up your legs with your unaffected arm, flopping them around to prove you are in fact “disabled” and in need of help.
You are discharged with no plan and no assistance on how to mobilise.
Two years later, you have another accident in a hostile built environment, due to a step that is not visibly defined with required signage or tactile markers. As a result, you now have a fractured clavicle (collarbone). After seeking medical treatment, you are given a sling – basically taking away your arm so you are no longer mobile – AND sent home again.
The sling is quickly discarded in the carpark because, with it on, you can not get back into the car to go home, get out at home, or basically move at all whilst wearing it.
This was my experience.
One of my friends who has no leg function, had a similar situation following surgery for Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, where she was sent home “to recover”. There is no way a person with a disability who is reliant on the usage of their upper body can simply stop using one arm and continue to function. Yet she was sent home to ‘cope’. Her pain was unimaginable and the success of the operation compromised as a result.
Three situations where the medical system has let people with disabilities down. Stories such as these are not uncommon. There are many more with people discharged from hospital with no duty of after care!
Many studies, reports and information are provided to patients about discharge planning from a multitude of sources – including NDIS discharge planning, hospital planning and even academic publications like the CSIRO (2024) https://www.publish.csiro.au/IB/pdf/IB23088 which comprehensively highlight the real issues. A major one being the conflict between the needs of people with disabilities and the hospitals’ discharge of patients with disability without real planning or consideration of the needs of the person upon returning home.
How and why does this occur in a fully functioning health system?
Lack of knowledge at the ward level and the clinician level. There is a lack of knowledge about the level of complexity an injury or surgery has on the functionality of a person with disabilities. A desire to ‘move patients on’ and free up beds at the detriment of patient care. The lack of advocacy within the health system to assist people to have a voice around their care. The lack of experience at every level of staffing in the health system – including allied health working with and understanding the complexity of physical mobilisation of people who are wheelchair users. Clinicians are seemingly simply under so much pressure that they are unable to follow the logical threads of loss of limb function due to accident or surgery and how this may impact the person’s mobility. There seems to exist a real lack of understanding or expertise, and perhaps an unconscious incompetence or lack of capacity to train up to do better.
How do we address this? More training. We need to seriously have more training for clinicians. This needs to be co-designed with people who have experienced the system failures and the malfunctions within. People with disability need to be involved in developing an education program for clinicians to avert failures in post-hospital discharge of people with disabilities when they are sent home in pain with no after care. Such consideration would reduce longer healing times and permanent and ongoing injuries commonly experienced due to such lack of care and clinical resources at accidents and injury onset.
We have to stop giving wheelchair users slings and sending them home.
I had no intention of ever visiting Europe as I hated the cobblestones in the UK. But I wasn’t going to refuse a free trip and was delightfully surprised to discover how accessible Vienna actually is.
Flights
I travelled with my support worker Amy, and our airfares were booked and paid for by the Zero Project Conference (ZPC) as part of my prize (read my previous blog about how I won it).
I had the choice of Emirates or Qatar, but one of the organisers recommended flying Emirates. So we did: 11 hours from Perth to Dubai and 6.5 hours to Vienna, with a 3.5 hour transit.
Three days prior to leaving, the ZPC still hadn’t confirmed the hire equipment I needed (a hoist with sling and a shower chair). I was getting worried, so contacted Emirates through their chat feature on their website. They agreed to take mine – both my hoist and shower chair can fold for transport – for free! So we travelled with my hoist, shower chair, power wheelchair and three suitcases between the two of us!
Checking in took ages (especially in Perth as the hoist battery hadn’t been cleared to fly), but everything arrived in one piece. I would definitely recommend Emirates. They were fabulous. Just don’t leave things to the last minute like I did, and always arrive at the airport three hours before your flight.
Accommodation
Our hotel was booked through the Zero Project Conference. I wanted to stay longer than the 4 nights they were paying for, so I agreed to pay an extra 16 nights, so a total of 20 in Vienna.
We stayed in a hotel called Roomz, near an amusement park called Prater. It met all my access needs:
* an elevator (actually they have three!),
* two single beds in one room,
* clearance under the bed for my hoist,
* a handheld shower hose and fully accessible bathroom, and
* near public transport.
For €149 (around $263) per night including a full buffet breakfast, it wasn’t cheap, but was great. And it exceeded my expectations as it has a restaurant on site, had wooden floors (much better than carpet when using a hoist), had free wifi, was down the road from an Aldi (known as Hofer in Austria), and had a cute cafe across the road that served wholesome food and drinks, as well as a burrito place nearby. I would definitely stay here again. Most staff were great and spoke English too. But it would have been great if they’d had a laundry nearby though.
Getting Around
Footpaths
Cycling is common in Vienna so I found the footpaths were pretty good. At large intersections I’d veer towards the cycleway as there was less bumps and kerbs. There were small kerbs at corners that were ok for my wheels, but might have been tricky for a manual chair user. There was lots of tactile paving as well.
Crosswalks
There are many crosswalks, but don’t expect cars to stop for you! Sometimes you just have to walk across and the cars have to stop.
Public Transport
There was a great website on accessing Vienna: https://www.wien.info/en/travel- info/accessible-vienna/accessible-public-transport-338230
Below is my experience of getting around.
Subway – Weiner Liner
The station was only a short walk away and had a lift to each platform. We could choose the U1 or U2 from that station (yes the subways are multi-level!).
It was like a maze trying to find the lift at the destination station though. Even if we’d been there before, we often got lost. There are signs but with so many levels, it wasn’t easy. They’re like small cities underground, with bakeries, shops and cafes.
It seemed the different lines had different carriages with varied wheelchair access. We used the U1 most of the time, which had carriages with access about every second train. The carriages with access had a red stripe along the side, were noted on the display with a line beside the wait time, and had a small ramp that came out automatically as the doors open. But only on the first or last door.
Once inside there were 4 seats that flipped up to create plenty of space. But not all passengers were great at getting out of the priority area. It’s recommended (and there are signs in English) to face rearwards and apply brakes. You want to do this! The trains went very fast and if there’s a fair distance between stations, you wobbled like mad if facing sideways. I likened the movement to getting naughty in the bedroom! They also braked quickly so try and keep your balance.
There were audio announcements for the next stop, but were rarely in English. It’s best to know how many stops you’re travelling and count them as you go. But then there’s the problem of knowing which side of the train to exit. There was an arrow on the display, but there were usually people in the way. Learn German for left (links) and right (rechts). Then listen carefully! It didn’t matter which side button on the door to press as it activated both sides.
Trains – OBB
There were a variety of different carriages on other lines operated by OBB. And not all were accessible. Some were low floor and level with the platform. Another type had a large gap so a station worker had to put a ramp out. We didn’t know where he arrived from, but glad he did.
Another type of carriage had a hoist at the door to lift my chair and hoist on board. Inside there were seats that flipped up to create plenty of space (even for my hoist). Most of these carriages had large accessible toilets too. And such a smooth ride!
Many of these were regional trains for which you had to have a timed ticket. Unfortunately they didn’t accept the Companion Card.
Another day we got on the train in a pram door, but at the station we needed to get off at, there were two steps down! We couldn’t find anyone to help us, so had no option but to stay on and get off at the next stop. Luckily it was level.
If we’d noticed there was no wheelchair symbol on the door, we probably wouldn’t have got on it. Or if we had got in the wheelchair door, there may have been a ramp and a way to call for assistance.
The driver did call over the PA, but it was in German and we couldn’t understand him! We had to get off at the next stop and were able to catch a tram back.
Trams
There were some tram carriages that are accessible. These had a ramp that the driver manually put out with a special tool, so you had to get on at the first door. The display screens on the platform showed a wheelchair symbol if an accessible tram was due next. I also think I heard a chime as it approached. Excellent for vision impaired passengers.
Once on board, there’s only the one spot to sit, directly opposite the door. I had just enough space to turn around and exit forwards. But wasn’t easy with the number of people on board. There was also a button to press to alert the driver that you need assistance to get off at the next stop.
Buses
I didn’t ride on any buses, but I saw plenty. All looked to be low floor, with a manual ramp at the rear door, not the front.
Tickets
A one way ticket was €2,40 (within Vienna city on any mode), but you can get a 3- day or 7-day ticket for €17,10. It’s best to get the app as it doesn’t matter what day you buy it. If from a ticket machine or service centre, they’re only valid to the following Monday at 9am only. A waste of money if you bought it on a Thursday, for example.
We actually never saw anyone checking tickets, and there were no gates to pass through. But apparently you can be fined if caught without a ticket. Unfortunately they didn’t accept the Companion Card either.
Toilets
Accessible toilets were few and far between. Some places had fabulous ones; others had none. The worst “accessible” toilet I used was in an old cafe. It was so small that the door didn’t fully shut. The best one we went to was in the Sacher Cafe.
It was decorated beautifully and had all the features required without feeling clinical.
One toilet at an exhibition about Mozart had a mirror that you could adjust the angle! Was so cool. All bathrooms had a red string to pull in case of emergency (I think). And some buttons to flush had a sensor, so you didn’t have to press hard.
A few places had locked toilets that could only be opened with a EuroKey. Much like our Changing Places facilities that you need an MLAK for. One such place was a regional train station. Lucky the cleaner had a key and was able to be called to open it for us. I think if I was to go to Vienna again, I would organise to get a key in advance or on arrival.
Places of Interest and Restaurants
Some places had access and others had none. It was hit and miss. There was a museum we wanted to go to on Vienna’s history, called Time Travel Vienna. We found our way there, and they had a ramp at the door. Only to be told the exhibition was on multiple levels and the lift doesn’t go to all of them.
They suggested we go across the road to Sisi’s Amazing Journey, where there is another exhibition that is accessible. Only to find a step at the door, and no ramp… Very disappointing. We should have called ahead or checked their websites before going.
I was surprised at how many beautiful old buildings actually had access. We went to the Shönbrum Palace, Upper Belvedere (Lower Belvedere isn’t accessible unless you’re brave enough to try the “ramp” in the garden), The Kursalon (music hall) and the Art History Museum. Only at the latter did I have to use an alternative entrance, as the main entrance wasn’t accessible. All had elevators, although at some you needed staff assistance to use them. For buildings built in the 1800s, they were worth seeing.
Some places we went to let Amy in for free, or gave us a discounted ticket (only €4 each at Belvedere)! So it’s definitely worth asking. It happened more often at government-run establishments than private places. I kept a spreadsheet of all Amy’s expenses to claim from NDIS when we got back, including her train tickets, meals, entrance fees and the wrapping of my equipment at the airport.
Famous restaurants and cafes were hit and miss for access too. Although it always paid to ask. Amy would go in and ask if they had a ramp, and we were surprised more than a few times when they said yes!
One memorable restaurant was Palm House. It was a cold, wet day and the queue was out the door. But they got people to move, put the ramps down and I came straight in to a table for two! No waiting in line at all.
In summary
There wasn’t a lot of time between finding out I had won my trip and me going. We didn’t have time to plan much. It was nice getting up each day with no plans and just going wherever we liked. But if I went again, I would definitely plan better. I recommend planning any trip, doing research on the places you want to go, and making the most of the time you have there. And Vienna is definitely a city worth visiting for more than several days.
In June 2001 I was a young and healthy 21-year-old living in Houston Texas when Tropical Storm Allison caught the city by surprise, causing deadly flooding and billions of dollars of damage to the city.
I wasn’t diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) until 2018 and my symptoms back in 2001 were very minimal, so when this natural disaster hit, I was in the fortunate position to be physically able to get myself to safety, to help others around me and to save some of my personal items before so many of my belongings were swept away.
The house I lived in thankfully had insurance so, after some time, it was rebuilt, whilst I waited for what I had saved to dry out – thankfuI that I and those I was with were able to get to safety and move forward. Sadly I lost many prized and cherished possessions with it taking many years to replace some things, but I will forever be grateful that I escaped mostly unharmed.
Fast forward 23 years, I now live in Canberra. Although I do not predict any tropical storms like that experienced back in Houston, we do have bushfire scares here. However, the biggest difference is that my personal situation has changed a lot since this major chapter in my life.
I am now fully reliant on using a wheelchair. Requiring mobility transfer assistance, my mobility and access has changed and I depend on others for assistance tremendously.
I work full time (50% in the office, 50% at home) and live in my own home with my husband and our dog. I have some aid through the NDIS for help around the house and with some supports, but it is mostly my husband and myself at home – with me working days and my husband working nights. So, it is just me and the dog overnight.
The reason I am providing this additional information is that it just dawned on me lately… what if something like Tropical Storm Allison were to happen here in Canberra today?
OH goodness, I would be royally S.O.L. (shit outta luck).
This frightened me more than I would have expected and I realised that I needed to do something! I could not wait for something bad to happen and for it to be too late. I had to take some action!
It is a fact that people with disability manage every day in environments that are often inaccessible. We regularly develop our own strategies using our strengths to manage and adapt to changing situations that often require planning and preparedness.
It got me thinking about emergency planning, and led me to reach out and attend a Person-Centred Emergency Preparedness (P-CEP) Workshop. There are many out there and I cannot recommend them highly enough.
One of the first things this course had me look at was my living situation and my social connections. I have lived in my home here in Canberra for over 15 years, yet I do not know the people who live in my street. How bad is that? We wave but we do not know each other. What if my husband is working at night, the fire alarm in my house goes off, and I don’t know anyone in my street to call for help whilst the fire truck is on its way? Similarly at work, what if something were to happen to me there? My colleagues all know my husband’s name but, if something was to happen, would they know how to get a hold of him?
Emergency situations can be challenging at the best of times but no matter what, being prepared and having the right people and those you know or trust alongside you through it all can make a challenging situation just a little bit easier. So how could I ensure that this was available to me should an emergency happen?
For me the answer was simply business cards. On the front I have all my details (name, address, phone number & email address) and on the back I have my emergency contact details – including my husband’s and my parents’ phone numbers. These simple cards have now become my conversation starters.
My plan is to now go and introduce myself to the people on my street, to leave these business cards at work, with some support workers and friends. Sharing my situation, making people aware and feeling more confident that, should something happen, there will now be people around me in the know and able to help if needed.
Sharing information opens the door to enabling others to help should the need ever arise. People are always more willing to help if they know 😊.
This will hopefully provide me with more comfort that, should there be an emergency, I now know I will not be alone and that the connections I have made will bring much more. We can always use more connections. But if someone I know sees that I need help, they can reach out too!
Introduce yourself to your neighbours. I know I will be!
You never know when you may just need each other.
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