Part from Blogging I do a lot of campaigning.
I am very known as The Toilet Woman for my Changing Places toilets campaign.
I love being out and about. I love my independence. I get 16 hours support from Key to enable me to do the this I want to. All well as a hectic social life this helps write my blogs and get on with campaigning to improve the provision of accessible toilets. They are both linked. The campaign to increase the number of Changing Places and living the life I want go hand in hand. I love having my support, my team are young women my age, they support me to be independent. But I need to watch where I go because of the lack of changing places toilets.
As a disabled person, I can’t just go out somewhere without thinking about disabled access. Are there ramps? Is there enough room to get around in the place? But especially is there a suitable toilet that meets my needs. I require a hoist. I need to plan ahead and check that anywhere I want to go has everything for me.
This makes me feel angry because for 2022 disabled people should be able to go anywhere that we want to go. Shouldn’t we?
And even if all the necessities seem to be in place it wouldn’t be first time, I went to use a changing places toilet and the hoist wasn't working. And let me tell you, needing to hold on until you find the next changing places toilet, doesn’t make for a fun day out!
It may seem a small thing to campaign for, but going to the toilet is a basic human Right for all of us. Did you know that we go to the toilet up to between 4 and 10 times a day. This can be a challenge for many disabled people like myself. Standard accessible toilets do not meet the needs of all people with a disability. Over ¼ million people in the UK with a disability need extra equipment and space to allow them to use the toilets safely and comfortably.
These needs are met by Changing Places toilets... so a changing places toilet has all the right equipment in it such as a hoist, a changing bed and it is very big to move around for a wheelchair user and two carers.
Today there are 242 changing places toilets in Scotland. As someone who in lives Glasgow I have seen how the city got better with a lot more changing places toilets. When I first started my changing places campaign there were just two changing places toilets in Glasgow but fast forwards to today there are 20 changing places which is fantastic! These include St Enoch centre, central station, Queen street station, Braehead, Kelvin hall, River Side Museum, Science Centre.
Having all of these toilets in Glasgow, it makes a life better for disabled people like myself because as I am a young person who likes to go out and about, going shopping, going to a museum, going to a concert or just going for dinner or a drink it is much better for me now then it was 8 years ago, there are just 20 changing places in Glasgow, even although this is good, we need more including in pubs and restaurants.
I have been campaigning for these toilets since 2015 , with help by The Advisory Group (TAG) Since I started my campaign I have done a lot of work to get more changing places toilets by made a video, done public speaking, had a few articles and I appeared on the programme called Inside Central Station in December 2021.
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