Access denied to Amelia

VULNERABLE: 15-year-old Amelia Darbyshire on the wheelchair hoist. PICTURE: PAUL BROOKS

Amelia Darbyshire just wants people to be more considerate. A little patience, a little care, and this wheelchair bound young woman will feel a lot safer.
It's not that people deliberately try to hit her or the necessary hoist that gets her in and out of her mobility van, but their impatience has led to the odd collision. On one occasion the hoist was damaged.
Amelia has spinal muscular atrophy and has been in a wheelchair since she was 18 months old. Kids' wheelchairs come in different colours and the control is in the centre like a helicopter joystick. "People thought I got it from The Warehouse," she says.
The wheelchair is a lot bigger now she's 15, it's still battery powered, and remains her only means of mobility. Her mother, Fleur, drives the van with the hoist - the latter supplied by Enable - but once they've parked and Amelia and her wheelchair have been lowered to the ground, she becomes vulnerable. The long wheel-base vehicle sticks out into the traffic, but that's the nature of the design. It needs to be that big to take the hoist, the wheelchair and Amelia's equipment.
"Even when it's raining, people don't stop," says Amelia. They'll let her get soaked while they sit inside their cars, nice and dry, and demand right of way. She's sure it's not deliberate, certainly not malicious, but too many motorists are thoughtless.
"Also, in the Avenue, there aren't many lips in the kerb, so I've got to go along the road and on to the pedestrian crossing to get on to the footpath," she says. In other words, Amelia and her wheelchair are in the traffic, looking for a way off the road. Even at marked mobility parks such lips are scarce.
"So that's quite dangerous."
As part of a school project she did broach the subject in a letter she sent to the mayor. She got neither response nor action.
But in general, are most people considerate?
"No, not really," says Amelia.
Amelia learns at home by correspondence and is enrolled with the Central Regional Health School. Her teacher, Rochelle Collins, makes educational house calls. Amelia says she attended Brunswick School for a few years but her weakened immune system makes it unwise for her to be too near other children during cold and flu time.
"If Amelia has gone into town she'll ring me if it's raining," says Fleur. "I'll go in and park in a mobility park but people won't stop and let me put the hoist down for Amelia to get on, even if it's pouring with rain. It only takes a minute."
The van gets a lot of use, particularly as Amelia requires regular trips to Starship Children's Hospital in Auckland. In 2012 she received surgery to straighten her spine.
"It's made a lot of difference," she says.
She says another obstacle is the bars set in concrete on certain footpaths and walkways to prevent bicycles mixing it with pedestrians. They effectively stop her from using such access ways, making her take the long way round.
Amelia and others in similar situations find Wanganui is not especially accessible and sometimes dangerous. The only cinema has an upstairs theatre with no lift so she can't go to newly released movies with her friends. Certain shops have no wheelchair access. Others do but the position of racks and shelves make the interior inaccessible.
At Virginia Lake, the concrete slipway is a major hazard for wheelchair users. In Wanganui Hospital, the lift buttons are too high for wheelchair users. Regular visitors carry a stick to reach the buttons.
"Just silly little things that make a huge difference to someone in a wheelchair," says Fleur.