Accessible solutions are a human right

User portrait: Josie Badger

Accessible solutions are a human right

People with disabilities should be able to have the life that everyone else has. This means, that everyone should be able to use a public restroom and to visit public places knowing that there are going to be accommodating facilities. That is just not the case when visiting many places today. There is a lack of accessible solutions and facilities in public restrooms.

This affects millions of people around the world to whom accessible restrooms are a necessity if they want to go out and do what everyone else does. To give you deeper insights into what consequences the lack of accommodating facilities in the restroom have on people’s lives, we have spoken to some whose lives are affected by it; one of them is Dr. Josie Badger.

Image: Dr. Josie Badger

Lack of accessible solutions prevent people from partaking

Dr. Josie Badger is Co-Director at the national RSA-Parent Training and Information Center technical assistant center and very active and engaged in the Pittsburgh community. She received her Doctorate in Health Care Ethics in 2014 and is a certified Rehabilitation Counselor. She is also diagnosed with a rare disease called Congenital Myasthenic Syndrome.

In addition, Dr. Badger was crowned Ms. Wheelchair America in 2012 and has won the Athena Young Professional Award in 2015. She is living proof that people affected by a disability can contribute with so much good to society – and that they – of course – should be included as much as everyone else. Yet, she very often experiences a lack of available restrooms in public; a lack which sometimes prevents her from doing what she wants.

Accessibility needs to be the new normal

Many people like Josie will not go to places, where the right accommodations are not accessible. This means that at many places, people with disabilities are not present; not because they do not want to be but simply because they can’t. To change this, we need to make accessible bathroom solutions the new normal – just as it already should be.

“It is always hard to decide on whether to do life like everyone else with the risk of not being able to use the restroom like everyone else can.” - Dr. Josie Badger.