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Month: May 2014

The role of the healthcare provider.

We often hear about the role employers, schools and teachers, landlord’s, and so forth have in ensuring that a disabled patient can get their treatment. Things such as time off work/school, and accessible apartment, and so forth.

Which is fine, but what if your healthcare provider is exploiting that?

From the Ontario Human Rights Commission:

Ontario’s Human Rights Code, the first in Canada, was enacted in 1962. 

The Code prohibits actions that discriminate against people based on a protected ground  in a protected social area.

Protected grounds are:

  • Age
  • Ancestry, colour, race
  • Citizenship
  • Ethnic origin
  • Place of origin
  • Creed
  • Disability
  • Family status
  • Marital status (including single status)
  • Gender identity, gender expression
  • Receipt of public assistance (in housing only)
  • Record of offences (in employment only)
  • Sex (including pregnancy and breastfeeding)
  • Sexual orientation.

Protected social areas are:

  • Accommodation (housing)
  • Contracts
  • Employment
  • Services
  • Vocational associations (unions).

So the code says that someone with a disability, for example, can’t have their rights infringed. But it DOES NOT SAY that only employers, for example, infringe.

What if it is your healthcare provider infringing?

I don’t think doctors, nurses, managers, and administrators think of it as infringing on your rights. They book your appointment for 3 pm Thursday, but I might only be part time, that might be my only work shift that week. What about MY RIGHT to earn an income?

Now I’ll freely admit that most health providers can easily re-schedule most tests and procedures. But what if they insist, and you have to fill out one of those against medical advice forms to do so? In my view, that’s infringing on my rights as a disabled person.

I think we need to have a conversation on how our healthcare providers work with our professors/school, employers, landlords, etc. Everyone probably tells you that “your health comes first.” That’s total BS. Without money to pay the rent, and purchase groceries, the treatment means nothing.

It’s time to reconsider our priorities.

The diversity of motherhood.

Tomorrow is Mother’s Day. A day to celebrate mother’s of all kinds. Most of us have the traditional view of mother’s. That being the female figure that gave birth to you (or adopted you), and raised us to be upstanding citizens. Doesn’t every mother want their child to attend Harvard Medical School?

My Mom is an amazing person. She stood up for me as a child, told me to chew with my mouth closed, and bought me clothing to wear. I was fortunate to have such a Mom.

Unfortunately, (or not, depending on your perspective), not everyone gets that experience.

 

To me, a mother is the emotional caregiver in the family. But with stay-at-home Dad’s, that’s not always true anymore. Or alternative families, single parents, the whole gambit of diverse options.

We so often assume that every family has a Mom, and a Dad. Despite changes in Canada’s families, and their makeups, we in general, still assume this. But more often than not, it’s not true. So how then do we change our assumptions?

How do we celebrate the Mom in our life, whomever that person is?

[themify_quote]

According to a team of world-renowned social psychologists led by Harvard University professor Dr. Mahzarin Banaji, the root of this apparent disconnection between intent and outcome may lie in the unconscious mind. Put simply, our mindset is not as inclusive as we think it is.
It is a distressing claim, one that tends to surprise those who are confronted by evidence that shows their behaviour is out of sync with their intentions. But research conducted by Dr. Banaji and her colleagues reveals that the human brain is hard-wired to make quick decisions that draw on a variety of assumptions and experiences without us even knowing it is doing so. This implicit or hidden system produces lightning-fast but often misguided generalizations while dismissing subtle but important distinctions. Ultimately, these unconscious predispositions shape the decisions we make by affecting the way we interpret information and how we evaluate and interact with people. – Outsmarting our brains

[/themify_quote]

I think that we overcome the assumption by getting to know other people, and families. By changing the way we think about family, and our parents, so that we recognize, and celebrate the people who do provide us with emotional growth.
And weather we have a nuclear family, or not, we celebrate that Mom in our life, as someone who is extraordinary.