Focusing on widespread barriers to care, these three, short video excerpts from our acclaimed HEALTHCARE STORIES series feature stories about inaccessible examination tables and weight scales and healthcare provider misperceptions and stereotypes. Advocates and practitioners alike recount their personal experiences and recommend actions for improving care. These downloadable videos present an all-important human perspective and affirm the barriers to care identified in a decade of research.
Watch the videos.
Author Archives: DREDF
Elizabeth Grigsby
Elizabeth Grigsby lives in San Francisco, California. An advocate with a non-profit organization, she has cerebral palsy and uses a motorized wheelchair.
Luise Custer and Charlie Tygiel
Luise Custer lives in San Francisco, California and is Charlie Tygiel’s mother. Charlie, who has developmental disabilities including a seizure disorder, shares a home with roommates in Santa Cruz, California.
Denise Sherer Jacobson
Denise Sherer Jacobson, a writer and disability educator, lives in Oakland, California. She has cerebral palsy and uses a motorized wheelchair. She is married and has an adult son who is 25.
Fred Nisen
Fred Nisen, an attorney with a statewide nonprofit legal organization, lives in Berkeley, California. He has cerebral palsy and uses a motorized wheelchair.
Carol Gill and Larry Voss
Larry Voss and Carol Gill, long-time residents of the Chicago area, both had polio and use wheelchairs. In six video segments, they candidly describe encounters with healthcare professionals and systems that were ill-equipped to provide the care they needed.
Frances Deloatch
Frances Deloatch, a wheelchair user who lives in the Boston, Massachusetts area, has Osteogenesis imperfecta (brittle bone disease) and she also has a hearing impairment.
Nick Ziemer
Nick Ziemer, who is deaf, lives in the Bloomington, Illinois area.
Jennifer Thomas
Jennifer Thomas lives in Arlington Heights, Illinois with her husband and fraternal twins. She has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair.
Michael Ogg
Michael Ogg, a wheelchair user who lives in Princeton Junction, New Jersey, has Primary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis.
"I have frequent visits to a doctor's office, neurologist, physiatrist, urologist, you name it, primary care, you name it. I see quite a few doctors and not one of them has a way of weighing me."