Commentary
Astronauts and Ventilator Users
The “Problem” is the Environment,
Not the Person
by Audrey King
Ask the man in the street
what he knows or thinks about people who use ventilators. Chances
are he’ll tell you they’re
brain-damaged, vegetative, “ill” or dying, just bodies being
kept alive at great expense to society. How wrong he is! What the man
in the street doesn’t know is that although the phrase “on a
ventilator” does
conjure up the hopeless images just described, we’re really talking
about a wide range of scenarios.
We do indeed have ill
or dying patients, those who are comatose, the seriously injured,
all of whom require intensive hospitalization, ventilators and
skilled medical care. But, there are many ventilator users who
are medically stable, mentally alert, ambitious and desperately
eager to live life’s goals
with as much independence and control over their own lives as possible. Typically,
they have lived with their disability for some time and are knowledgeable
and competent with respect to their own needs and equipment.
The problem that prevents
such individuals from achieving independence and control, from
living their own “self-directed” lives
within their own communities, lies not within the ventilator-dependent
person but overwhelmingly within the attitudinal and physical environments
in which they live.
Consider the astronaut,
for example. When you think about it, you realize
he is in fact, severely disabled. He cannot walk properly unless he wears special
boots to keep his feet on the ground in that weightless outer space environment.
He can’t feed himself unless he learns new ways to coordinate his hand-to-mouth
movements. He requires specially prepared food. Nobody talks about
his bowel and bladder needs, but it’s difficult to imagine how he could
possibly cope without some special kind of clever collecting device! The astronaut
can’t even sustain his body’s need for oxygen. He requires “life
support” systems for his very survival.
Yet, who would label
an astronaut “disabled,” “deficient,” or
in need of intensive medical attention? Society doesn’t see his or her
significant physical incapacities as “problems” that need to be
fixed. Assumptions of helplessness, inability, incompetence, or needing to
be “cared for” never exist. In fact, it’s the opposite! Rigorous
training and expectations to carry onerous responsibility in carrying out complex
and demanding outer space tasks are the norm. Astronauts are “heroes.”
It’s the environment—the “moon”—that is deemed
to be the problem, never the astronauts’ deficiencies. His or her environment
is perceived as hostile, alien, incompatible with life and definitely not accommodating
to the astronaut’s physiological requirements. So, at enormous
expense and billions of tax dollars, assistive devices are created to enable
that astronaut’s physical and physiological needs to be “accommodated” so
he or she can function, stay alive and breathe in that unfriendly world.
And so, it would seem
that meeting the needs of “disabled” earth-bound
humans, whose unique physical requirements make it difficult to live and function
in an everyday world, depends largely on society’s values and perceptions.
A person’s physical abilities often cannot be changed, but the attitudinal
and physical environment in which they live certainly can. ![]()
Originally published
in Rehabilition Digest under the title, “A
Matter of Perception.”
