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The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare how profoundly devalued disabled lives and experiences are. The latest article from the Disability in Health team — of which I am a proud member — has been published in Healthy Debate:

“People living with disabilities have long been accustomed to asking for inclusion without results:

• We needed telehealth appointments to make receiving health-care easier but the system didn’t allow for this;
• We needed access to remote work and other accommodations to ease the strain on our bodies and enhance our work performance but companies claimed in-person attendance was required;
• We needed accessibility in the built environment to make it usable for us but that request was treated as a “nice to have.”
• We needed our children to have individual education plans in schools but these were not followed.

Yet when COVID-19 hit, much of what we had previously been told was impossible was implemented quickly and efficiently.”

Read the Disability Equity in Health article on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the disabled community in Healthy Debate.