The Costs of Being Disabled
Money Box
BBC
4.2 • 825 Ratings
🗓️ 31 July 2019
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
There are nearly 14 million disabled people in the UK and a report from Scope has found they have to pay an average of £583 every month to have the same living standards as someone without a disability. Inevitably, the costs of mobility aids and having to use certain public transport will add to the monthly outgoing. But what are some of the less obvious, or hidden, costs of having a disability? How does it all add up? And what can be done to mitigate these costs?
Presenter Lee Kumutat and our guests discuss these questions and more as we hear from disabled people and their parents about how their disabilities cost them extra money, limits their access to financial institutions, and holds them back from independence. in this Money Box Live special we won't be taking calls in the programme but would still love to hear your thoughts and experiences which you can email to moneybox@bbc.co.uk.
Guests: Jessica Leigh, Policy and Campaigns manager at Scope Dr Miro Griffiths, Teaching Fellow in Disability Studies at the University of Leeds Helen Undy, Chief Executive of Money and Mental Health
Presenter: Lee Kumutat Producer: Drew Miller Hyndman Editor: Emma Rippon
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're about to listen to a BBC podcast, but this is about something else you might enjoy. |
| 0:05.4 | My name's Katie Lecky and I'm an assistant commissioner for on demand music on BBC Sounds. |
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| 0:41.2 | BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. |
| 0:46.0 | I'm Shona, I'm 21 years old, and I'm a blogger and activist. |
| 0:50.0 | I have a condition called Marfan syndrome and I'm a power chair user. |
| 0:55.6 | And what are some of the costs that you think you incur just by being disabled? |
| 0:59.5 | Recently me and my friends went up to Leeds and they all got the coach. |
| 1:04.0 | But my power chair was too big to fit the dimensions of the wheelchair space on the coach. |
| 1:07.5 | So I had to pay for a train which was about three times the price. |
| 1:10.5 | And to me that was just, oh, that's what I just have to do. |
| 1:11.2 | You know, that's the situation. But actually, it shouldn't be what I have to do. You know, it was expensive. And they |
| 1:16.8 | got the coach back that night and stayed with friends, whereas I had to pay for a hotel, which |
| 1:22.2 | costs over £100. So it's things like that, which are just so normal to me, it's not until |
| 1:27.0 | someone else points it out that you start to think. |
| 1:30.5 | That's Shona Louise there, talking about something that isn't always obvious |
| 1:34.5 | even to disabled people themselves. |
| 1:36.8 | And yet, it can have a massive impact on people's quality of life, |
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