Disability Bitch hates ice

11th November 2009

Readers, I fear that this week we've all been distracted by shocking reports that visually impaired people have bad handwriting and have overlooked a major disability news story.

I bring you exciting tidings: I've discovered the ideal winter holiday destination for the Unbalanced, the Unstable and the Uneven. Unfortunately, it's nowhere quite as warm as Barbados, nor is it as snowy as the Swiss mountainside, but excessive heat and ski-ing don't go down too well with the wobblers I know anyway. Readers, I present to you the new number one cold climate holiday capital - County Durham.

Well may you look at me in surprise. Allow me to explain: this year the roads in this particular corner of North East England will be thoroughly gritted and I mean thoroughly. As a result, it is said, elderly and disabled people can expect to fall over less.

for once we can leave our houses with confidence after a heavy frost or cold snap. Obviously I HATE FALLING OVER and I would be leaping with joy at this news, if only that leap of delight wouldn't render me more at risk of collapse

So why is this spectacular I hear you wonder? It's spectacular, readers, because it's the NHS that are making this possible. Fact is, County Durham Primary Care Trust - that's the body that funds local NHS services - has given £1 million of its budget for the next two years to the local council. So, to put it in a nutshell, the local council will be using your health care money to grit roads. Gritting, the PCT claim, will prevent the elderly from falling and fracturing bones, and also minimise injuries caused by road accidents which, as some of us know, can lead to lifelong disability. Lest we forget, broken bones and lifelong disability are an expensive burden on poor impoverished recession-hit taxpayers.

Despite the fact this has sparked some controversy locally and in the Daily Mail, the PCT are sticking to its guns and claiming the gritting of local pathways is "health improvement work" but a member of the Trust's governing body has resigned in disgust, saying the council itself should fund road gritting and the NHS should use its excess cash for more physiotherapists, speech therapists and so forth. Oh dear.

Personally, I'm delighted that the NHS actually wants to invest funds in preventing me from falling over. I'm also delighted to see that someone has acknowledged that us so-called 'vulnerables' might want to leave the house in inclement weather. The less liberal thing to do would've been to lock us all in our houses until icy conditions pass and spring is sprung once again. Probably cheaper than all that grit. How much grit does a million quid buy you anyway? An entire mountain of it, I imagine.

Delighted by the North East's all inclusive outlook, I was in the process of packing my bags and booking special assistance on the train to Darlington when a thought occurred to me. The thing is, readers, I am a bit rubbish at walking and I do fall over a lot but - and I fear this one fact may've escaped the PCT's notice - I don't just fall over out of doors. I fall over in my own house, in shops and on public transport too. So for their safety policy to work fully, I would require the NHS to fund the work required to make my own house safe to fall over in. Perhaps they could line the walls and floors with that soft squidgy stuff they put under swings in kids' playgrounds. That would keep me super-safe. Also, I quite often trip over my own front step or while wobbling down my own garden path: I assume the PCT's gritting policy will extend to melting the ice outside my own front door, literally.

Failing that, perhaps they could provide me with a full time PA, or perhaps two male models carrying a sedan chair, who can guide me through the mean and icy streets of the UK winter. It'll save money in the long term, readers, I promise you that.

MillsWatch

Weeks after bringing us the news that my favourite one legged Beatle divorcee is in training for ITV skating reality show, Dancing on Ice, The Sun reports that Heather may be on the verge of quitting because she's 'suffering agony in her stump'. Apparently, ice skating when you only have one leg is quite hard. Don't give up, Heather! Think how much fun the journalist had writing the 'stump agony' sentence; imagine how many more creatively crafted amputee lines we'll have in our newspapers if you make it on to the show! I'll be voting for you.

Facebook

I can guarantee that becoming my virtual friend on Facebook will not increase your risk of falling over, however crippled you are. 1673 people can't be wrong. be my friend and tell all your wobbly mates to be my friend too. Ciao for now, grit lovers.

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