Has the disabled community been left behind during the pandemic?

By Ross Wilcock // BBC The Social contributor // 21 July 2021

This pandemic has posed many questions for someone like me, who has been living with disabilities during this time. As I fear the disabled community are not being listened to and are being left behind. With many people throughout Scotland having their care and lifestyle disrupted, due to the pandemic.

A survey in April 2020 by Inclusion Scotland discusses many issues including the fear that public bodies are not listening to us as a community. 30% of participants said that their support had been either stopped completely or had been drastically reduced since the pandemic began. 64% said that the pandemic has had an impact on getting the food and medicine they need to live.

It really does feel like we have been left to fend for ourselves after so long of living in a society where we have been made to feel like we need abled bodied people to help us.

When lockdown first began, I had to move out of a flat with two friends that I loved, back in with my parents and I found that had a massive toll on my physical and mental health. My parents are lovely and incredible people. It's more about where they lived, they lived in an area where there is not a lot of transport routes. Meaning that when things did start to reopen, I had to keep myself in and keep myself locked away, even when people were out and about. That was really not good for me as a young person wanting to see friends and live my life again and I really did see my mental health plummet because of that.

I also felt like my independence had been taken from me, after managing to find some form of independence being an openly gay/disabled person, living in a society that’s not built for someone like me.

That was taken away from me, because of things outwith my control which made me feel like more should have been done and that public bodies should have been listening to people like me, voices like mine telling them what we need.

I’ve always found it really difficult to find steady work in normal times and, and I was always told throughout my employment history that working from home was near impossible. Now overnight just because it affects the abled, suddenly everyone is working from home.

One of my biggest fears is when normality comes back again, in whatever form that may be, that home working will once again be something that is obsolete or that isn’t really a possibility anymore. That makes me worried about my future employment opportunities, and even now that everyone’s working from home it does drastically reduce the opportunities for disabled people again.

It just really makes me think that this world is built for the abled when it should be built for everyone which is why accessibility and public bodies taking these voices and taking the advice from people who have this lived experience is so, so important.

Another issue that I have always been worried about since we got news of a vaccine is wondering when I would get mine.

Luckily now I have had my first dose of the vaccine but throughout this whole journey I have been really worried as someone who is visually impaired and mobility impaired that I am unable to be guided by other people to help me and to make sure I am not interfering in someone else’s two metre distance. Equally I’m always worried that someone is within my two metre ratio and that’s extremely frightening for me when I can’t always see the world around me. I personally feel like I have a justifiable reason to have had priority for the vaccine. Unfortunately, it’s not doable for someone like me.

As we're seeing a much clearer route out of this pandemic, I really hope that this time has shone a light on the fact that disabled people have been sorely misrepresented during this period.

I just hope that as we emerge from these dark times that there will continue to be a focus on the issues we have faced and more will be done to tackle the issues that once went ignored. I hope that the voices that once went unheard, are finally listened to.