More on wheelchair access

Q. You wrote recently that you haven’t done a medical office since 1990, when the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed, but you did my medical office and several others I looked at before I hired you. You should correct that statement. Also, I appreciate checking things out before the final plans are given to a building department because of what we went through. You remember that the contractor’s security alarm guy said we didn’t need to show plans to the fire marshal, and because of that we had to do extra work to replace smoke detectors? You called out the detectors and the alarm guy ignored it. Fortunately, he corrected the problem, but it delayed our opening. You warned me about it at the beginning of the job, but the contractor talked me out of it. I was glad you wrote about these problems. They can be very expensive to correct.

A. I should have written that I haven’t done a medical office without a handicapped-accessible bathroom since the ADA was signed into law in 1990 by the first President Bush. Handicapped accessibility is required in all buildings other than homes. Building officials have made sure we all comply with the law. I appreciated these requirements more when a close relative became wheelchair-bound and realized the limits placed on members of our society by inaccessibility.

And it isn’t just the wheelchair-bound. With an aging population and instant access to media, we’ve all become more aware that we’re not all able-bodied. Some people, unfortunately, still abuse the system, parking in handicapped spots, using seats in theaters reserved for the disabled, blocking ramps with their cars, etc. The other day I saw a man try to close an elevator to avoid letting a wheelchair rider on. Ironically, he could have taken the adjacent stairs, while the person in the wheelchair was the reason for the elevator.