3/8/2024 0 Comments Pipe rails on handicap rampThere is a big difference in cost between keeping a person in their home and putting them into a caregiving or assisted living facility.īefore the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990, little or no thought was given to the civil rights of people with disabilities. Most states offer a program to help keep disabled persons in their home because it saves them thousands of dollars. Here on the coast, we use the money for materials and do the construction with volunteer workers. These needs can be anything from helping them obtain certain foods, installing grab bars, widening doorways, or building wheelchair ramps. Here in the state of Oregon (and other states), there is a program that offers up to $1,000 (every two years) for people on Medicaid who have special needs. Government programs can helpįortunately, these days we don’t have to beg for some used boards and found nails to construct a decent ramp. Not so for those confined to a wheelchair. Being able to get out of our house is something most of us take for granted. Think about how good it feels for folks in a wheelchair to be able to exit their home, sit in their yard, soak up some sunshine, or even go to the medical clinic or to the grocery store when they want to. So guess what? Here I am, in 2009, building ramps for wheelchair-bound poor people with debilitating illnesses or injuries who want to get out of their house now and then. Many of the nails were the old, square kind that, once found, were straightened and reused. Most everyone in that town of 85 inhabitants, including me, used to sort through those ashes looking for nails. The nails used to fasten boards together came from a burned out house nearby. She was, as they say, “as thin as a rail.” I can’t help but wish I had a picture of not only her, but also of that primitive ramp made from weather-worn boards. I can still recall her smile as the heat soaked into what was left of her body. Of course, no one had a wheelchair, but the men had built a simple ramp to make it easier to carry her from her bed in the house to a rocking chair set out in the yard. When summer came with blessed sunshine, people would take our mother’s friend outside to soak up a bit of those warm and healing rays. Snow, along with killer winds, often arrived in September and didn’t leave the ground until April or May. The winters were long and hard in Western Nebraska. It takes some time to die of TB, so this caring went on for several years, if I recall correctly. Our mother took her friend food-liquid soups mainly-and helped her to bathe and wash her hair. So people did what people have always done, especially in hard times-they took care of one another. Such care might as well have been on the other side of the world for most of us, as few had an automobile. The nearest medical care of any kind was 30 miles away. TB was more common in those days, with little hope for a cure, especially for poor people. One of my first memories, in the early 1930s, when I was 4 or 5 years old, was of our mother taking care of a neighbor woman, Eula Hughbanks, who had tuberculosis. Volunteer work: good for the community and good for the soul
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