If necessity is mother to anything that remotely resembles invention then all wheelchair users would certainly be sitting pretty. The reality for wheelchair users is that necessity is a mother, but not the kind gray haired type that hooks you up with homemade chicken soup every time you cough or sneeze.

Wheelchair users understand necessity very well. For most people the necessities are food, shelter, some degree of security, and the other common everyday needs. For wheelchair users there is one more very important necessity. Mobility, in the form of an appropriate wheelchair, that is suitable for use in their indoor and outdoor environment, and that enhances quality of life and supports their chosen lifestyle. Wheelchair users also understand and live with the consequences of this need going unfulfilled- Immobility, confinement, inequality, and despair.

Oh, the necessity is there alright. The problem is not tied to any lack of it. The problem is with society. Society has not yet become a real mother. She has not yet given birth to the inventions that would resolve all of this. These inventions are changes in our society that would afford wheelchair users the mobility equipment that they need. Not based on a funder’s capitation scheme or by the calendar on the agency wall, but based on pure and simple necessity.

Our society should not disable people for lack of basic necessities such as wheelchairs and other mobility devices. When this happens it is time for us all to invent a solution.