Access Denied!

Why is it that just when things seem to be going along smoothly something always happens to bring one up with a start?

Last week I was asked to leave our local hospital because I was accompanied by my assistance dog. I'd gone there to collect someone who had been in for a days tests.

I was asked to leave as apparently "it is the Trusts policy not to allow dogs in clinical areas" mention of disease and the fact that it wasn't essential for my assistance dog to be there was made. Then the killer blow, "it would be different if you were the patient". Well how on earth would the health risks (their words not mine) from my assistance dog be different on a day when I am the patient as opposed to a day when I am collecting my next of kin from a days treatment? Hmmmm, odd that.

It wouldn;t have been so bad if I had just turned up, but I did present myself at the reception and ask to see the patient concerned, and indeed was shown in! It also begs the question of an exact definition of a clinical area, and who decides it is so ... clearly the member of staff who allowed me in wasn't sure either! Then of course there is the fact thast other patients were allowed to have visitors in the area ... even with noticeable coughs and colds, most probably a far greater risk to everyones health than a well groomed, working assistance dog.

Of course I agreed to leave immediately, but asked to see someone in authority and also to see the "trust policy" that apparently barred my Registered Assistance Dog and thus discriminated against me as a person with a disability. Needless to say, the next member of staff up the supply chain could not produce the policy either ... they just knew that the presence of an assistance dog was a health risk!!

Inevitably, this is very much a watch this space ... I have made a verbal complaint and am taking advice ... in the meantime, I had no option but to cancel my own appointment two days later and have been sent a new one for May!

I've now had two phone calls from the hospital and it now transpires there is no "trust policy" in place and have had an apology ... maybe that policy is way overdue!