BOSTON (WHDH) - Thirty years after the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed, doctors are celebrating what it has accomplished but say more work needs to be done.
The ADA requires workplaces and communities give access and opportunity people with disabilities. Dr. Cheri Blauwet said the ADA’s passage when she was 10 helped her become a two-time Boston Marathon wheelchair division winner and specialist in sports medicine at Spaulding Rehabilitation hospital.
“On a whole, what we’ve really seen is that we have a whole empowered generation of people who have been able to grow up under the protection of the ADA and know that they can really choose their fate, move forward in life and have Independence in the community,” Blauwet said.
But Blauwet, who also leads the disability task force at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, said more needs to be done. She said the pandemic has shown the power of telehealth services and said they can be important in allowing people with disabilities to live independently in their own homes, and said people need to change their perceptions.
“We really need to continue to break down barriers that create a perception that having a disability is a lesser way of living,” Blauwet said. “If we can empower people and build the correct infrastructure in our communities than actually, you can live a very very full, very independent and empowered life even with a disability.”
Dr. Jason Frankel, also of Brigham and Women’s Hospital, believes telehealth services give power to people living with disabilities and that the pandemic has allowed the technology to adance.
“You really can have meaningful interactions with your patients,” Frankel said.
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