The number of disabled people in the UK is steadily increasing. How we address individual accessibility may make a huge difference to a person with disability, their carers, and in turn will lead to a more effective healthcare service. Social isolation associated with a disability, and furthermore old age often brings increased isolation. I wished to address the topic of disability in healthcare in my creative piece and based this around a personal experience with a patient I met during my gap year.

In the image I have represented a man in a wheelchair who is at the front of the painting. I used the wheelchair to represent disability. In the background I painted a staircase – this indicates the challenges that a disabled person may face as obviously he can not get up the stairs without great difficulty. The patient I worked with used to come to his GP practice every few weeks. Unfortunately the surgery did not have a ramp and there were three stairs to get to the reception. I often helped him get from his chair into the building with the aid of two walking sticks. Although it was a struggle for him and you could tell he was uncomfortable, I think that it was also positive in a sense, as he clearly enjoyed coming to the practice and seeing the staff. In my artwork I purposefully did not paint a ramp or another form of access in order to highlight the accessibility issues that people may often face.

Painting this piece gave me the opportunity to reflect on how important it is to think about the different aspects of patients’ lives and will certainly affect my future practice. Also, thinking about my personal experience made me realize that the problem we may often think is what the person needs us to fix (i.e. this person is disabled, I must help them walk), is often not the issue for that individual, and that it is valuable to talk to the person and understand exactly what it is that they want.