I can't really make sense of what is being reported about this, to be honest. Apparently most of the entrances are accessible but she went to one that isn't - the implication being that if she'd gone to one of the others, then she'd have been able to get in. But then the BBC article says that she couldn't get into the grounds because the only options were a wheelchair-inaccessible shuttle bus or walking. Apparently she arrived in a car (which she had to because she tried to get on the shuttle bus and couldn't) and that's why she wasn't able to get in.Woodchopper wrote: ↑Tue Nov 02, 2021 2:36 pmThat's sh.t.Fishnut wrote: ↑Tue Nov 02, 2021 2:25 pmThe BBC is reporting that UK's Environment Secretary George Eustice is blaming the Israeli delegation for the lack of accessible transport/entrances:Fishnut wrote: ↑Mon Nov 01, 2021 9:20 pmIsrael's Energy Minister was unable to attend today because the transport offered to get to the venue was not wheelchair accessible. According to a tweet by a Jerusalem Post reporter,
Liam O'Dell, a Deaf journalist, also reports that there's no sign language interpreter on stage.
The National Federation of the Blind of the UK is asking world leaders to put accessibility at the heart of their policies.
I really can't understand how you can put on such a gigantic conference and not consider the fact that some of the delegates may be disabled.Or, you know, you could just make sure your venue is accessible to wheelchair users from the start, regardless of which entrance they're using.What would normally happen in this situation is that Israel would have communicated that they had that particular need for their minister.
"There was obviously something that went wrong in this instance and they weren't aware of that so they hadn't made the right provisions at that particular entrance she was coming too.
I suspect that its worse. I'll be amazed if the SEC isn't normally accessible to people using wheelchairs. There are standards for new public buildings. Its not some medieval castle with access via stone staircases.
So what may have happened is that the event organizers took an accessible building and made it inaccessible through adding security checks etc.
But if all of that is the case, what happened to all those other supposedly accessible entrances?
The only way I can make sense of it is if there was some kind of security cordon that was preventing any vehicles other than the shuttle buses from getting near the building. And then there was an entrance outside that cordon with separate security that was not wheelchair accessible. But then why on earth couldn't they just let her in through the bus entrance in her wheelchair? Or was it such a long way away that she wasn't able to travel that far in her wheelchair either?
Not that it really matters, but I like to understand. But clearly the organisers clearly somehow made a normally accessible venue not accessible, whether due to security measures or something, and it's utterly useless. Why the hell weren't the shuttle buses accessible? If our local National Trust estate can manage accessible shuttle buses, you'd think a major international conference would be able to.