To Boldly Go Where Everyone Else Has Gone Before

Last week we celebrated the 20 year anniversary of the birth of the Disability Discrimination Act and I've been reflecting on my own recent struggles with access. In the 20 years since the DDA was passed much has changed but not as much as you would expect. Disabled people across the country still struggle with the inaccessibility of society - from the lack of acceptance and understanding of mental illness to the new builds surrounded by steps - and I'm just going to talk about one of my more recent experiences.

As you're probably aware from my profile, I study at the University of East Anglia. Lately I have been having trouble accessing important services such as the Union's office and the bookable rooms for societies. If I was a postgraduate student or an alumni member I would also be unable to access the postgrad centre and bar. This is a huge problem that is very complicated and sometimes even I sit here and think "there's a lift so why can't I just go upstairs" so I'm going to try and summarise this as simply as possible.

As a wheelchair user I have to use a lift to go upstairs in buildings. The building that houses the above services has a lift but it is not a fire safe lift and therefore can't be used in the event of a fire, so if there is a fire there is no way to get me out of the building if I'm upstairs. It is usually assumed that wheelchair users can be transferred to an evacuation chair but for some people who don't have the strength and can't transfer themselves and are fragile, like me, this isn't really an option. Because they can't get me out in a fire, the university legally can't allow me to go upstairs in any building as there are no fire safe lifts.

My situation is due to be resolved within the next few months with the fitting of a stair climber that can carry both myself and my wheelchair down the stairs in an emergency. However, this stair climber may not work for all types of wheelchair, so another student may be in my position in a few years time. When speaking to someone who is working with the university to make the campus more accessible they told me that if they fit a fire safe lift they won't be able to fit the lift they're currently working on because they just don't have the funding. Millions of pounds has been poured into renovating the campus yet so little of that has been put towards making UEA more accessible that we can't afford more than one lift!

UEA have complied with the law with the accessibility of the campus but it is still not enough. Legally they don't have to fit anything else to allow students like me to access important facilities but wouldn't most people expect a university to be more forward thinking and enlightened? At least enough not to require encouragement legally?

As someone who is heavily involved with the student union and who is going through a particularly rough time at the moment (see my earlier post), the added stress of having to deal with this situation has made my time at UEA unnecessarily difficult. I am in my second year of my degree and only have around a year and a half left here. For 4 months of me being unable to access such vital services is a huge chunk of my academic career. The likelihood of convincing the university to pay for both lifts before I leave is slim but one can dream.

All I am asking is that students like me are allowed to boldly go where everyone else has gone before. It's 2015 - 20 years since the Disability Discrimination Act was passed and yet the fight is still not won. Why are these things still happening? It's 2015, and I still can't go upstairs in my own university.