Last week I was taking bets on whether I would sink or swim at Wellington swimming pool. Today I was not able to find out. The existing owners are not wanting to spend money and the hoist is broken. So, I cannot transfer to the poolside chair that lowers you into the pool. Apparently, the new owners, who take over August 1st will prioritise sorting out accessibility.
Not wanting to miss out on trying out the facilities I decided to try out stage one, the changing room. I am so glad I did; nothing is easy and simple when you are disabled. Mary and I got up at 6:15am, well I was awake at 4am as usual, but Mary brought me breakfast 6:15am. By 7:30am I was ready to head out to the Sports Centre. We arranged to meet one of my carers there, an experienced young lady who has used poolside changing equipment before. Arriving around 8am we headed into the changing room. Mary explored the sports centre.
Let me describe the changing room. It’s oblong and has a bench and two lockers along one of its short ends and a toilet and shower unit at the other. You enter on the right of one long wall with the bench to your right and toilet to your left. Ahead of you is a power up/down bed on the opposite side, it’s folded up against the wall. I say bed, really, it’s a metal frame with a strong plastic sheet stretched over it and holes in it. The plastic sheet has a dip to enable drainage, in theory. There is a lifting side to it, but this only comes up into place when the bed is up flat against the wall. When you lower the bed into place you either need to have the side already up or stay down. Which means that if it was up, you couldn’t then slide onto the bed. If it’s down, it doesn’t fulfil its purpose of keeping a user safe from sliding off. The whole bed raises and lowers electrically.
My wheelchair was lined up right next to the bed, with the side down. My wheelchair was then reclined, and the footrests raised. Making it almost bed like. The bed was raised to an inch below my seat height. The side support on my chair was removed and the arm swung up out of the way. The result of all this was a near continuous route from chair to bed. I then rolled onto the bed, simple. Not quite, because it was at that point, we discovered that the bed was designed either for children or shorter adults. I am 5’ 10” and my feet hung over the bottom. You may think so what? But I have delicate skin and the surrounding edge of the bed is a metal bar. Very hard and unforgiving, especially for delicate skin like mine. Later when I turned over there were red marks on the backs of my legs.
Clothing removal went OK, the plastic was still dry, so the material slipped alright. My carer discovered that the shower hose pipe was quite short when she was washing me. But the water pressure and heat were good. She was very glad to be wearing sandals as the floor completely flooded. Mary said the manager was mopping up floods coming from under the door while we used the shower. Why is it that no wet room is designed well? I have been in a few over the years and all of them flood. Can it be that hard to allow enough angle and sufficient drainage to prevent this?
The other place that flooded was the bed itself. The small drainage holes in the plastic were under where my body lay. I discovered that I am a great plug. When I turned over, to have my back washed we discovered a few things. First, there were no bars for me to hold onto to assist in turning, I had to use the side of the bed, not easy, because it’s too low to get hold of and has no grips. Second, the water was able to drain as I was not blocking the holes once I turned. Third, I had red marks perfectly matching the drain holes all over my back and bottom. Memories of the Amazon shower stool came back (see my blog “An odd request from Amazon.”) Fourth I slipped more easily when I had been soaped than after I was rinsed.
After I was washed, we had the problem of drying. My carer had already pointed out at the beginning, that the number of towels I had brought was woefully inadequate. I had asked Mary to pack three, thinking one more than my usual was ample. It wasn’t. As one was used to protect me from further marks after they were discovered on my back and one was used to dry the bed. Just one small towel was left to dry me. By this point the humidity in the room made drying hard going. But with amazing perseverance from my carer, I was dried and dressed.
Next my wheelchair was brought back to the bedside. I neglected to mention it had been moved while I was washed. The bed was positioned an inch above my chair seat, and I rolled back into the chair. A reversal of the earlier process.
It was great to have a shower, first one in a few months as I don’t have a wet room at home. I can only have a shower at other places. The last one being Revitalise in Southampton, where I also had a bath (see my blog “Shall we get in the bath?”). But I will not be repeating the experience until the new owners improve the facilities. We spoke to one of the representatives of the new owners afterwards and pointed out what needs changing and upgrading. Hopefully they will sort these things out and myself and other disabled users can benefit.
It’s disappointing when expectations of an experience fall so short. I did enjoy being able to get thoroughly soaked with water. But the difficulties of using the bed made the experience much harder than it needed to be. With a ceiling hoist, a replacement bed of adult size, a longer shower hose, and better drainage the experience would be so much better.
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Shall We Get Dressed Now? 