The Elevator and the Wheelchair

The Elevator and the Wheelchair / Regina Coyula
Regina Coyula, Translator: Maria Montoto

The other day in the hospital, after waiting fifteen minutes for an
elevator to take my husband to the medical offices on the top floor of
the building, a man who was pushing someone I assume was his mother in a
wheelchair, was prevented from getting on the elevator although there
was ample space, because no wheelchairs are permitted.

We got onto the elevator when it was on its way up and the elevator
operator called on the phone so that the person in the wheelchair could
be picked up, but the "specialized" elevator was detained on another
floor waiting for another patient. On the way down, the elevator stopped
once more on the floor where we had been and the "solution" was to stand
the patient up and to fold the wheelchair — everything being done as a
favor and with the operator's explanation that she could be reprimanded.

My husband got excited because the reason for a hospital is to care for
the infirm and the lady had been waiting for nearly half an hour; he
surmised that if the conditions which led to a given policy changed,
then the policy also had to change. I was giving him discreet signs —
touching him with my foot and jabbing him with my elbow.

The gentleman pushing the his mother's wheelchair excused the operator,
who had left them stranded, and effusively thanked her for agreeing to
transport them. The submissiveness of accepting any measure is not
merely something of hospitals, but a national syndrome.

Translated by: Maria Montoto

July 14 2012

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