Blue Badge Campaign
For Disabled Toddlers

Any parent will know that travelling with a toddler can be difficult; getting in and out of a car with a wriggly child and a pushchair to contend with can be trying at the best of times.

So imagine having to manage a child who has a large part of their body in a cast having just had an operation.  This was the situation the mothers Helen Grindrod and Kelli-Ann Rushton found themselves in when their children were diagnosed with a condition called Hip Dysplasia.

However they were amazed to discover that their children weren't eligible for a Blue Badge which would allow them to use a disabled parking space, despite the fact that it is completely impossible to get them in or out of a car in a normal car parking space.

Says Helen “We need to be able to open the car door as wide as it will go in order to put them in and take them out of the car safely without risking further dislocation or fracturing their legs.”

“After the operation they are placed in a Hip Spica cast which goes from the chest down to the ankles, legs at right angles with a bar in between. These casts are extremely heavy and wide and render the children completely immobile.”

“Most children with Hip Dysplasia will be immobile for around five months, if the treatment goes well. Many children end up having further operations; this is the case for my daughter Mia who is due to have yet another operation in a few weeks time. A lot of children with Hip Dysplasia have already spent time in a harness before having to go through an operation and the casts afterwards.”

Children under the age of two are not currently eligible for a Blue Badge as it is argued they can be carried in much the same way as a child without special needs. Also those who have a disability lasting less than three years are not eligible.

The mums have started a campaign to try and get the government and the Department for Transport to look at their criteria and to ask them to carry out the promises they made in accepting these changes over four years ago.  Their campaign has the backing of their local MP Maria Miller, the National charity "Steps" who are for children with lower limb deficiencies and other disability organisations including Contact a Family.

Helen continues “Since starting our campaign we have been shocked and saddened by the amount of families/children with differing special needs that cannot get the help they need. We have had families with serious heart defects, Talipes, Cerebral Palsy, children on constant oxygen and children with feeding tubes who cannot get the help they need simply because of their age or type of disability.”

They have started a petition to support their campaign, so if you would like to support them or to find out more information about the campaign visit http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/blue_badge .

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