Need To Make Buildings Accessible For Crippled

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31136, 12 August 1966, Page 14

Need To Make Buildings Accessible For Crippled

(New Zealand Press Association) DUNEDIN, August 11. A call for the lowering of “architectural barriers” against the physically handicapped was made tonight by Dr. S. L. Ludbrook, a retired Auckland paediatrician.

“We should take a more positive approach and encourage our architects and engineers to plan schools, universities, places of recreation and worship and public buildings such as post offices, banks and libraries so they can be shared on equal terms by the physically handicapped and the normal person,” he said.

If there were better estimates of the numbers of crippled in the population a proportion of State houses could be built for families who required functional homes.

“By a little thought it would be possible to make buses, trains and other means of transport more accessible for the crippled and the aged infirm.” Dr. Ludbrook was giving the Sir Charles Norwood lecture sponsored by the Crippled Children Society. His subject was “Community planning for the child with a physical defect.” Most large secondary schools were built with classrooms on two or more floors, without lifts, said Dr. Ludbrook. “We discovered recently, when attempting to find schools for two teen-age secondary school children with traumatic spinal paraplegia, that only two of Auckland’s 36 State secondary schools were accessible to them—-one at Papakura 21 miles south, and the other at Avondale seven miles northwest of the city.” Re suggested the university barriers were even more effective, at least in Auckland. “It is difficult enough for the crippled child to pass university entrance—but it is virtually impossible for him to attend university classes. Even the latest building, completed in 1966, has no lifts, and the ramps to the entrance

are guarded by several steps.” Post offices, banks, theatres and public buildings also presented insuperable difficulties to the crippled. “The T.A.B. agencies, and most retail shops, are careful to provide level going for their crippled clients,” he said. Discussing the education of crippled children, Dr. Ludbrook said that segregation should be avoided. “It is a challenge to the affected child to have to compete with normal children in their homes, in kindergartens or schools, for they will certainly have to do so later in life. “If the child’s physical difficulties are so great he will be endangered by so doing, he could be placed in a special class attached to a normal school, rather than a special school for those with similar physical handicaps.” Vocational assessment and training should be available to all handicapped people, said Dr. Ludbrook. In a programme established in Auckland in the last two years 100 people had been evaluated and only six were awaiting placement in jobs. Six had been recommended for further training, five had

moved from the district and two had ceased work because of illness. The others had all been satisfactorily placed. This success represented a saving in social security bene-

fits of £12,000. The people were receiving £46,000 in gross annual pay and paying £3500 in taxation.

Dr. Ludbrook also spoke of the need for more research into the causes of congential abnormalities—and the opportunities for scientists, engineers and technicians to devise new and better aids for the handicapped.