Fully accessible theatre

[the kid]

6 minutes ago, sunray said:

CPR on any surface other than 'the floor' does not give the full qualification for first aid at work cert.

Yes, I believe you might be missing the other things. Responder in a chair, gaining access to the patient upstairs while taking a kit bag, removing said patient from bed,  THEN performing CPR. 

[sunray]

31 minutes ago, the kid said:

Yes, I believe you might be missing the other things. Responder in a chair, gaining access to the patient upstairs while taking a kit bag, removing said patient from bed,  THEN performing CPR. 

No I didn't miss any of it, My response is simply to this:

1 hour ago, the kid said:

 on a bed

which, as had been pointed out to me and the rest of a fairly aged group at our 3 year FAAW training, would give us a certificate to say we had completed the training but not the full FAAW documentation.

The only time I've seen CPR performed for real; I was supporting the patient in an upright chair while the fortuitive consultant worked his magic. The patient happened to be the guest speaker at a dinner and walked past me out to the fire escape, mid speach, for a breath of air when he felt faint, I followed him out with the chair and chatted with him for a few moments before he started fading.

@the kidhad made no mention of removing the patient from the bed... and to be honest if I were to be attending to a patient in/on a bed my first thought would be aimed directly at the first aid and not at moving them to the position learned during training. Before anyone else mentions it I am aware of the forces and support required for CPR.

 

As to the other points, yes of course I understand the access problems for a wheelchair user but if they can't get to the patient all the rest is moot. If they can get to the patient then the training received must be tailored to their disabilities, as in fact mine has been due to my knee problems.

As it happens one of our local St John members a number of years back was a wheel chair user and she used to be one of the trainers. I saw her once at an event as one of the first aid team but heard a tale or three about her from colleagues.

[sunray]

1 hour ago, J Pearce said:

Any modification to stairs/gangways needs careful consideration and risk assessment. But, done properly, on most staircases, tactile edging (and wheel bumps at the top of stairs) improves safety for pretty much everyone. Needs the right solution for each staircase - one size fits no-one etc.

One of the previously mentioned problems:

A pedestrian underpass had metal strips added at the top of about 10 steps and a 'landing' then about 20 more steps, whese are maybe 15mm wide and 10mm high. Within days several member of the puplic had been taken to hospital by ambulance and the steps were barriered off to prevent access for several weeks while an expert report was commissioned.

The installation was given a clean bill of health. The same day the flight of steps was reopened an elderly lady tripped on this:

At the other side of the road, the lady tumbled all the way down to the lowest level and witnesses confirmed she tripped on the metal strips. A year on the strips are still there and the injuries still happen but the statement that they will stop a runaway wheelchair seems to usurp the hazard.

There are 3 such sets of steps:

As far as I can make out this is cited as safe as there are no reports of accidents and therefore the other steps must be safe too😕

However the 3rd access point is hardly used as the pavement doesn't really go anywhere.

 

All I'm saying is be careful as I've known of several situations where 'safety' features on stairs have had the opposite effect, even the added handrails with curled round ends hooking up clothing.

[Jivemaster]

Once working in a photo business, a darkroom was modified to suit an employee of less than average height. unfortunately this made the room hazardous for average to tall colleagues and two were hurt.

[sunray]

42 minutes ago, Jivemaster said:

Once working in a photo business, a darkroom was modified to suit an employee of less than average height. unfortunately this made the room hazardous for average to tall colleagues and two were hurt.

Indeed I've encountered the opposite where an extremely tall person set-up a temporary panel building workshop where everything was that much higher than usual, ie bench height 44". A colleague stood on a milk crate to use it and took a step back...

But let's not get involved with lists of; 'I know of...'

[Ynot]

This may well be an unpopular opinion to hold in these days of equal opportunities and the like, but I often feel that there are too many do-gooders out there who try to enforce the idea that we should be making every effort to make everything accessible to everyone, regardless of their ability or otherwise.

Yes - in an ideal world, that would be, well, an ideal that in any given situation someone with life-changing injuries (or less able from birth) SHOULD have the chance to do or experience whatever their heart may desire. But the practicalities involved in making that happen come hell or high water just don't match up when you look at the huge variation in disabilities out there. 

Take wheelchair users - they will range from individuals who only need the chair when going some distance, and may be able to walk to some extent, right up to the amputees who use racing wheelchairs, or play basketball or other sports right back again to the other extreme of quadruplegics who sadly spend pretty much ALL of their lives being wheeled around. Trying to come up with accessibility options for that range of people to be involved in many aspects of our work (for example) would be prohibitive.

With new builds and significant upgrades to facilities, yes, we CAN do our level best to make as much as is practicable an accessible option, but there are (and have to be) limits. And the expectations on existing buildings are actually far lower than you might imagine. We were looking some years ago at what we might do in my venue, and the local council disability officer basically said that if putting in an accessible feature impacted negatively on the majority of our audience (eg) who are fully abled, then it may not in fact be approved.

Case in point - we wanted to look at making the first row of our auditorium a wheelchair row with a ramp up to it. However, the only way that ramp could have run, at the correct slight incline, would have made it a long run, taking it directly across the front main doors and halfway across the second set of doors - thus creating an uneven trip hazard for pretty much everyone. We eventually removed the actual front step so that the wheelchair spots were all on the flat, but you see the point.

Any accessibility option HAS to be practicable within the confines of any existing building, and worked in properly to all new builds, but there are limits to both.

[Jivemaster]

1 hour ago, sunray said:

Indeed I've encountered the opposite where an extremely tall person set-up a temporary panel building workshop where everything was that much higher than usual, ie bench height 44". A colleague stood on a milk crate to use it and took a step back...

But let's not get involved with lists of; 'I know of...'

BUT! "I know of" is much more likely to happen again than an able bodied person's opinion of what might be likely for someone of impaired ability.

[sleah]

9 hours ago, sunray said:

One of the previously mentioned problems:

A pedestrian underpass had metal strips added at the top of about 10 steps and a 'landing' then about 20 more steps, whese are maybe 15mm wide and 10mm high. Within days several member of the puplic had been taken to hospital by ambulance and the steps were barriered off to prevent access for several weeks while an expert report was commissioned.

I think it comes down to money in that example. The correct solution would have been to cut a section out and replace with those concrete 'rumble' strips that don't come above the level of the rest of the pavement. But that would have been more expensive. Short-sighted - the cost of the metal strips and subsequent compensation claims and investigations will probably cost more than doing the job properly first time - or not at all!

[Ynot]

1 hour ago, sleah said:

I think it comes down to money ...

In many cases, yes, I think it will.

Rightly in some cases, not so much in others.

Again, I think the advice we were given was that any upgrade of an existing facility must be financially practicable as well as physically - there's no good making those changes if in doing so it would put the venue owners/operators into serious financial difficulty. But on the other hand, if a measure (or lack thereof) would result in the potential for patrons, able bodied or otherwise, to claim compensation should injury occur, then .....

[kerry davies]

We have a riverside walk each side of the river. One is wheelchair accessable because it is on an old railway line. The other isn't and never will be because it is part of the Wye Valley Walk. "A 136 mile walk of startling contrasts from ravine gorge cloaked in woodland, through meadow and orchard, to rugged and remote uplands." Making that wheelchair accessable would destroy it's very nature whether it was affordable or not. 

As for those metal strips, what are they supposed to do? They won't stop a runaway chair and if an unaccompanied, visually impaired wheelchair user is heading for a subway under a major trunk road there's not a lot anyone can do about their safety. 

There has to be an element of common sense about health and safety and accessability. Some things we just have to accept are beyond the remit of "the reasonable man".

[sunray]

3 hours ago, Ynot said:

In many cases, yes, I think it will.

Rightly in some cases, not so much in others.

Again, I think the advice we were given was that any upgrade of an existing facility must be financially practicable as well as physically - there's no good making those changes if in doing so it would put the venue owners/operators into serious financial difficulty. But on the other hand, if a measure (or lack thereof) would result in the potential for patrons, able bodied or otherwise, to claim compensation should injury occur, then .....

This all makes perfect sense to me... but...

Obviously going bankrupt is not the aim but if the H&S situation says it has to be done then...  until the man from English Heritage says no and suddenly it's totally acceptable to have members of the public accessing an uneven flight of stairs via a door only 4ft high or 18" wide etc. Or stepping across a narrow opening atop a significant drop.

 

Back in theatre land; does it really make sense to have wheelchairs rolling around on the steelwork in the fly tower or people with missing limbs in the rigging? The answer is very difficult without being there.

I have personally worked with a number of disabled colleagues, some where the disablity makes little difference to their performance and I'm gobsmacked at their performance (chair bound and one legged control panel builders and a telephone operator are 3 who instantly spring to mind) whereas others simply get in the way/put others at risk/create additional work. In case I'm coming across as anti disabled, no certainly not, I take every situation as it comes.

 

[sunray]

3 hours ago, kerry davies said:

There has to be an element of common sense about health and safety and accessability.

There certainly has to be,  however it seems H&S risk assessments seem to usurp common sense.

3 hours ago, kerry davies said:

Some things we just have to accept are beyond the remit of "the reasonable man".

Oh how I wish we could form a club based on this premise.

[dje]

I know I'm a bit late to this party... but it seems to me that people are saying nope! can't be done! on the premise that the traditionally built proscenium theatre with fly system on a slatted grid can't accommodate wheelchairs. Or thereabouts.

The only requirement for what makes a building a theatre, is that it is a place where shows are performed.

Perhaps rather than asking the question How do we make a traditional theatre grid, wheelchair friendly? The question ought to be what kind of overhead facilities would be best suited to the limitations of wheelchairs?

If your concern is wheelchairs on the grid, then a tension wire grid will solve a great many problems that would be associated with grid slats. 

If your concern is evacuation plan from any form of wheelchairs at height, let's not have wheelchairs at height at all.

What if the theatre was a black box studio, with hoists on the ceiling (controlled by a panel at ground level) lowering trusses onto which you can hang set, and movers? All adjustment of sets are done from ground level. Lights can be focused from the floor. Faulty lights swapped at ground level. Speakers rigged to trusses and raised to height. It seems to me, you could meet all your accessibility targets if your space was a box room with a flat floor, controls all at ground level, and hoists bringing everything down to the ground to be rigged and derigged, and anything in the air that needs moving being automated to do so.

A theatre is made by what goes on inside it, not what facilities it offers.

[sunray]

7 hours ago, dje said:

I know I'm a bit late to this party... but it seems to me that people are saying nope! can't be done! on the premise that the traditionally built proscenium theatre with fly system on a slatted grid can't accommodate wheelchairs. Or thereabouts.

I don't believe we are saying that

7 hours ago, dje said:

What if the theatre was a black box studio, with hoists on the ceiling (controlled by a panel at ground level) lowering trusses onto which you can hang set, and movers? All adjustment of sets are done from ground level. Lights can be focused from the floor. Faulty lights swapped at ground level. Speakers rigged to trusses and raised to height. It seems to me, you could meet all your accessibility targets if your space was a box room with a flat floor, controls all at ground level, and hoists bringing everything down to the ground to be rigged and derigged, and anything in the air that needs moving being automated to do so.

A theatre is made by what goes on inside it, not what facilities it offers.

If I read you correctly  you are advocating a system which can be rigged from the ceiling but not by people unable to reach the ceiling to alter the rigging.

[paulears]

A friend of mine has it pretty well, I think. He’s in a chair, permanently. All he would like is to be able to go to the toilet in a pub or restaurant, and not have to phone in advance to check it’s possible. He doesn’t want to access areas only normally available by spiral staircases or ladders, he doesn’t want to go into orchestra pits or beer cellars. He doesn’t even mind rough ground as he has click on bigger wheels and gizmos for his chair as he like going to parks and national trust places. He doesn’t get cross when he cannot get to out of the way places. He especially hates going places where he needs others to help him in and out. If he cannot do it alone, he feels he’s a burden, so he doesn’t ever press his ‘rights’ but he just wants a wee.