When my appointment began, I immediately Nike Air Vapormax Damen felt out of place. The nurses who brought me into the doctor’s Adidas ZX 750 Mujer office looked me up and down, giving me the sense that they did not know what to do with my chair or my body. (My muscular dystrophy requires that I use a motorized scooter to move around.) I’d hoped Adidas NMD Womens things would smooth over once the Adidas NMD Damen doctor arrived, but it soon became clear that I wasn’t going to be equitably treated. Rather than feeling confidence and trust, I was anxious and uncomfortable. I felt unsafe and shaky as I coached the nursing staff on how to guide my legs and help me www.roburharlingen.nl onto the exam table.At one point, I asked the doctor, Nike Air Max 1 Dames “How often do disabled women come in for check-ups?” “We have some here and there,” she said. I felt like I was being told that patients with disabilities were not even an afterthought.
She didn’t stop. As the doctor www.ranmoorpharmacy.co.uk and nursing staff left Nike Air Max 95 Donne the room with a completed exam, I took a moment for myself and cried before Nike Air Max 97 Damen entering the office hallway. After the procedure, I thought of my friends—other people with disabilities—and wondered how they, too, have likely been let down by our health care system Nike Air Max 270 Mujer and might even be discouraged from accessing www.brucolimare.it/ basic—but needed—preventive sexual health screenings as a result of a negative experience. While gender-based inequities in health care are finally being discussed more openly, gaps in care for people with disabilities, particularly women, remain Nike Air Pegasus 83 Femme hidden.
According to the National Council on Disability, Nike Air Max 270 Donne women with disabilities are less likely to receive annual Pap tests and mammograms compared to women without disabilities, regardless of age. We are also more likely than women without disabilities to delay Nike Air Presto Femme getting the medical care we Nike Air Presto Mujer need, and some of us have reported avoiding reproductive health appointments Nike Air Max 97 Femme altogether because accessible services are so difficult to get. I’m also mindful that, as a college-educated white woman living in a city setting, I have, despite my disability, Adidas Superstar Damen access to resources that many others do not. Recognizing Adidas ZX 750 Donne the intersection of disability with other forms of oppression is critical, especially because the rates of disability are significantly higher among Black, American Indian, and Alaska Native women.