Mum of wheelchair-bound teen dismayed by disregard for disabled people

After years of hurdles caring for her disabled daughter Matilda, she found the irony - the bin was the property of a physiotherapy clinic - bitterly amusing.

It was Wednesday afternoon and Ms McKernan was eager to take Matilda out for some shopping at Wodonga Place.

Ms McKernan said she was tempted to wheel the bin into the clinic and dump it at its reception.

"I might have done that if Tilly wasn't with me, but I just wanted to find somewhere to park," she said.

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"If only it was as easy as just moving it, but I can't touch bins, I can't move a bin. If my daughter gets an infection she finds herself in a lot of trouble.

"She has all sorts of respiratory issues and an infection would be a disaster."

Matilda, now 16, was diagnosed with osteoperosis three years ago, suffers from a respiratory disease and is confined to a wheelchair and bed 24 hours a day.

It wasn't so much that she was inconvenienced that day, it was the fact that this had happened so often before.

"People don't seem to care, we also get shopping trolleys dumped in them (disabled parking bays), it's just disgusting that people can be so inconsiderate," she said.

"I thought why would that bin be in any parking spot, but especially a disabled spot?

"Being able to park in these spaces is not a privilege, it is a necessity for us.

"There are so many challenges disabled people face every day - this might seem like a small thing but after all these years it gets very frustrating when disabled people get treated so poorly.

"This happens to disabled people all the time, I don't think it was deliberate, it's just no one gives it a second thought."

The clinic whose name was on the bin was unsure as to how it ended up in the disabled bay.

"We can only sincerely apologise to this lady and her daughter," said Simone Bowler, the principal of Masters Musculoskeletal Physiotherapy which runs HealthFocus Physiotherapy Clinics.

"We understand the frustration she would feel, and the challenges associated with parking and access, and it would never be our intention to add to these challenges.

"We routinely place our bin at the end of our walkway, definitely not in or obstructing the disabled parking space, and then usually place them away as soon as possible once they're emptied.

"Unfortunately over the Christmas period our Wodonga clinic is closed for this week and next and we had not yet attended the site after the bin had being emptied to place it away.

"I can only surmise that unfortunately the bin had either been placed down there once emptied, or moved by someone after we had placed it out to be emptied.

"In future we will do our best to ensure the bins are placed away in as timely manner as possible to avoid this concern occurring again."

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