• ‘It’s horrifically painful’: the disabled women forced into unnecessary surgery | Society | The Guardian
    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/aug/06/disabled-women-surgery-catheter-accessible-toilets

    Anderson’s doctors term her situation “social incontinence”. She has full control of her bladder – no physical incontinence – but simply lacks the ability to urinate because there aren’t toilets suitable for her in public. And she is far from alone. There are 250,000 disabled people in the UK who cannot use standard accessible toilets. The solution for Anderson and other disabled people should be simple: what is known as a “changing places” toilet, a facility fully accessible for all disabled people that features an adult-sized changing bench and a hoist. But there is a chronic shortage of these in public spaces. With just over 1,000 across the country, it is common for the nearest accessible loo to be two or more hours away.

    Campaigners want fully accessible toilets to be installed in public places such as large railway stations, airports and motorway services. Last month, the government announced £2m for changing places facilities at motorway services. But there is still a long way to go. Recently, Marks & Spencer came under fire for launching a range of clothes for disabled children but not having adequate disabled toilets in any of its stores.

    It is easy to dismiss such facilities as too costly or relatively unimportant, but Lorna Fillingham, a campaigner who handed in a petition to Downing Street in February, calling on the government to do more to address the problem, says this is a critical issue. “Disabled people and their carers are being put at risk of both physical and emotional harm all day, every day, throughout the UK, as many towns and cities don’t have a single registered changing places toilet facility,” she says.

    #toilettes #WC #handicap #exclusion

    • Reportage de france 2 (l’autre nuit) sur les camps de migrants, à Grand Synthe les femmes mettent des couches car elles ont trop peur de sortir pisser la nuit, il n’y a pas de toilettes dans les cabanes.