I just finished working on an interesting case. After a number of years an elderly spinal cord injured gent had used up his present powered wheelchair. His wheelchairs are funded by the Veterans Administration, one of the nation’s largest purchasers of wheelchairs. Both he and his spouse/caregiver had become very acclimated to the wheelchair. It worked for them at home, in the community, and in their adapted van.

After some lightweight evaluations the client was supplied with a new power wheelchair. Of course it was radically different from the original, didn’t work in the home, and couldn’t be locked down in the van. The couple immediately started calling their funder, the VA, to resolve these issues and were just as quickly branded as pains in the butt. Not a good thing to be in a government bureaucracy that will use any reason to back burner you. Anyway, I am now communicating with the funder who will be supplying a new power wheelchair to replace a new power wheelchair. It seems the original model wheelchair is still in production and should be a dead on replacement.

Instead of listening to the client’s legitimate complaints, I will now have to listen to the funder’s illegitimate complaints about the cost of keeping SCI in wheels and the impact on their budget, and … The dollars become bottom lines on the budget ledger and the bureaucrats quickly forget how that line got so red and the clients, even when they are right, will still be considered pains in the butt.