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Access denied

Czech facilities for the disabled are among Europe's worst, and campaigners are demanding new laws

By Kimberly Ashton
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
March 28th, 2007 issue

VLADIMÍR WEISS/THE PRAGUE POST

Even navigating Prague's cobbled streets is a challenge for wheelchair users such as Jarmila Onderková.

Just before Christmas, Jarmila Onderková went to a local Irish pub with some friends and encountered an all-too-common problem for people in wheelchairs: At the entrance were three stairs, impossible for her to negotiate.

These kinds of daily problems are widespread in the Czech Republic — and why the National Council of Disabled Persons (NRZP) is launching an effort to call for changes in regulation in European Parliament and the European Commission to require that all transportation and buildings used by the public be accessible to the disabled.

The council’s aim of collecting 30,000 signatures across the Czech Republic is part of a Europe-wide effort to collect 1 million signatures, and pressure member governments, including the Czech Republic, to improve disabled access for people such as Onderková.

That December night, Onderková told an employee about her problem. Brought to the alleged disabled-accessible entrance around back, she found no ramp there, just two fewer steps.

“She thought that one step is better than three steps,” said Onderková, 38, during a recent interview at a disabled-friendly McDonald’s near Wenceslas Square.

Onderková’s experience reveals a common attitude toward the disabled in the Czech Republic, an attitude that extends to building owners themselves. Despite a 1994 law requiring that all public buildings be accessible to the disabled, many times they are not. There might be a ramp, but it is often too narrow to accommodate a wheelchair. There may be accessible bathrooms, but they are located downstairs, or there is a bell to ring for entrance but it is out of reach for someone in a wheelchair.

In sum, there are ways to get around the law. “As for these laws being circumvented, it is as with other laws here,” said Pavel Ptáčník, who runs the office for the Government Board for People with Disabilities. He says that while laws exist, “there is no one body that would oversee the compliance.

“Of course, the compliance and its application in practice is sometimes a different thing.”

Onderková, who works for the Prague Organization of Wheelchair Users, said sometimes owners claim that because their buildings are national monuments they can’t be altered. Others make a joke of their inadequate attempts at accessibility.

“In a humorous way they would say, ‘OK, you have to wait for another reconstruction,’ ” she said.

The joke is lost on the 200 new wheelchair users in the Czech Republic every year. Václav Krása, head of the National Council of Disabled Persons, estimates that 3 percent to 4 percent of Czechs have disabilities that limit their everyday lives. In Europe, about 37 million people have some sort of disability, according to the Czech News Agency.

Day by day
Onderková was not always as aware of accessibility problems as she is today. One month before the revolution in 1989, when she was 20, Onderková was in a car accident that left her paralyzed from the waist down. She has adjusted remarkably well, which she credits to having been around disabled people in her former career as a nurse.

All of a sudden, she had to take into consideration a list of things before doing something as simple as going out for a beer with friends. Stairs, toilets, parking and even the number of drinks her friends have (so they can carry her up stairs later) must all be considered. Onderková says she has already given up on the disabled-unfriendly public transportation system.

Most of all, she said, she didn’t want to feel like a burden — she wants to be “free and independent.” But Prague doesn’t make that easy. Many stores have steps to get in, and dressing rooms are often too small to accommodate wheelchairs and so are many so-called accessible toilets.

“Sometimes it’s a source of suffering because you realize what you can’t do,” she said.

The bright-eyed and energetic Onderková has traveled around Western Europe, and said that other countries are far ahead in terms of accommodations. “There is a great difference,” she said.

Bringing the Czech Republic’s accessibility levels to the standards of Western Europe is part of why she plans to sign the NRZP petition. Gathering signatures may help put disabled-access regulations, drafted in 2000, at the forefront for discussions. If passed by the European Commission, the Czech Republic must incorporate it into law.

Though disabled-access has a long way to go in the Czech Republic and other parts of Europe, small steps toward greater awareness of the problem are already being taken.

This May, for the second year in a row, Prague will host an international conference on easy access in which participants talk about their experiences in different countries and discuss what can be improved, Onderková said.

She has also worked with architecture students to help them understand the reality of navigating ramps and entrances in a wheelchair. The students will use wheelchairs and try to get around the city themselves.

Furthermore, the government announced in February its aim to draft an anti-discrimination bill by the end of 2007, which would include people with physical disabilities.

Still, she is not sure how attitudes will change. “[It] depends upon empathy and willingness to follow the law.”

Naďa Černá and Hela Balínová contributed to this report.

Kimberly Ashton can be reached at kashton@praguepost.com

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