BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — Kathy Flaherty feels like she’s been “screaming into the void” for the past two years.

Flaherty, executive director of the Connecticut Legal Rights Project, has diagnosed bipolar disorder and identifies as someone with a disability. The Americans with Disabilities Act defines a person with a disability “as a person who has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activity.”

Those with mood disorders, such as bipolar, also are at higher risk for serious illness from COVID-19.

Flaherty can attest to that. She got the illness in March 2020, when the pandemic was just starting and said she still has lingering symptoms. That’s why she’s so frustrated that people seem to be in a hurry to leave masking and other COVID-19 precautions behind, despite the risks to people with disabilities.

“We have been ignored, forgotten and left out of policy discussions,” said Flaherty, also an attorney. “We were called hysterical and we were insulted. People were OK with leaving us behind.”

Throughout the pandemic, experts said, people with disabilities have faced a variety of struggles, from challenges during telehealth visits to issues accessing drive-thru test and mask distributions.

Many of those with disabilities also have underlying conditions that can make them more vulnerable to becoming seriously ill with COVID, which has made the current phase of the pandemic — during which many people are expressing a desire to “move forward” — particularly frustrating.

“There’s a pressure get rid of all of the (COVID) restrictions when it’s still floating around,” said Sheldon Toubman, a litigation attorney with Disability Rights Connecticut.

Flaherty echoed those thoughts and said people don’t seem to understand how vulnerable those with disabilities still are. “Everybody is in a rush to get rid of masks, when we have no business doing it,” she said.

But, as frustrating as the “done with COVID” rhetoric is, it’s far from the first time in the pandemic that those with disabilities have felt ignored.

In October of 2021, the National Council on Disability released a report showing the multiple challenges those with disabilities have faced during the pandemic. These include their increased risk of infection and serious illness; the decision of some states not to prioritize them during vaccine distributions; and the communication gulf faced by those with hearing and sight problems due to mask-wearing.

The last challenge is one that Dr. Sean Kelly is familiar with. Kelly is the medical director of acute inpatient rehabilitation at St. Vincent’s Medical Center in Bridgeport. He said, early in the pandemic, when much of health care shifted to telemedicine, he noticed multiple obstacles for those with disabilities.

One such challenge was the barrier mask-wearing created for those with hearing impairments.

“If someone has a hearing difficulty and relies on reading lips, once you put a mask on, the complexity (of treating them) increases,” Kelly said.

Another group he noticed were at particular disadvantage when it came to telemedicine were people with amputations who used prosthetics. Kelly said patients sometimes need to have these prosthetics adjusted for a number of reasons, including a mechanical issue with the device, or a change in the size or shape of the residual limb.

“Typically, we would do an evaluation with the residual limb,” he said. “That’s hard to do when the patient is not in front of you. Imagine having a computer screen and trying to lift a knee amputation up to it.”

Another major obstacle struck during the recent COVID surge linked to the omicron variant of the illness. Throughout Connecticut, towns distributed supplies of COVID test kits and, in some cases, N-95 masks, to citizens, often on a first-come, first-served basis.

Flaherty, Toubman and others argued that the method of distribution should have prioritized those with disabilities. In January, the Connecticut Legal Rights Project and Disability Rights Connecticut lodged a complaint against Gov. Ned Lamont, the state of Connecticut and the Connecticut Department of Public Health.

The complaint alleged “violations by the State and DPH of the rights of people with disabilities throughout Connecticut who have been denied reasonable modifications in the State’s policies, practices and procedures so that they may have equal access to the State’s COVID protection programs, including access to personal protective equipment (PPE) in the form of high-protection N-95 masks and at-home testing kits,” according to letters sent to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Justice.

To the state’s credit, Flaherty said, the action got a fast response.

“The (attorney general’s) office did reach out to us right away and say ‘What do we need to do?'” she said.

Eventually, the state changed its guidelines to state that community-based distribution of self tests should “prioritize vulnerable populations including, but not limited to, persons who live in congregate housing and persons who have physical, mental or intellectual or other developmental disabilities.”

That was encouraging, Flaherty said, but she’s still frustrated by the roadblocks that have been placed in front of those with disabilities during the pandemic, particularly at this point when so many people want to move forward without regard to those at risk.

“You’re basically saying we don’t care enough about (us) to inconvenience yourself at all,” she said.

© 2022 Connecticut Post
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC

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