Do people really care about the disabled?

Ten or twenty years ago there was a lot of noise about the need for equality - whether women, gays, ethnically different, or indeed disabled. You have to be really careful with what you say to avoid offending women, gays or those of a different race ... but, it seems, the disabled have come out of it really badly. Yes, we have paralympians on TV, but what is done to make life easier for the average person in a wheelchair, or recovering from an illness?

When we go to the supermarket I will push Viv in a wheelchair, coupled to a special shopping trolley that connects to the 'chair. Apart from demented children running in front of us, not realising I can't turn the ensemble on a sixpence, the actual acquisition of stuff into trolley isn't too bad. But paying can be a nightmare.

Our local Asda has three types of checkouts: manned ones, un-manned ones, and express unmanned. I can't take the wheelchair and trolley combo into the express unmanned area a) because it's intended for basket-only shoppers, and b) because there's insufficient room to manoeuvre there. All bar one of the manned checkouts, and the unmanned ones, are too narrow for Asda's own wheelchair trolley to get through without bumping against fixtures: there is just one 'wide' aisle, marked with a wheelchair symbol, which is intended to be used by wheelchair users. Guess which checkout lane was closed this morning? Yup, the wide one. We ended up going through an unmanned one, the trolley scratched some paint off the edge of the bollard that is put there for some reason. If they have only one wide lane surely they should think about the needs of the disabled and keep it open?

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In a similar vein, some months ago I raised a complaint with our local council. Viv is recovering from a nasty condition - involving brain surgery and stuff - and needs to do rehab exercises, but we have to be careful that she doesn't get exposed to too many germs. The council put in an outdoor gym just along from us, and one of the by-laws is that dogs aren't allowed in that area of the park - for obvious reasons.

There have been numerous cases of dogs being there, and weeing and pooing around the equipment, so I have stopped taking Viv along. I contacted the council and asked for signs to be put up confirming dogs are not allowed, but bugger all has happened. The gym equipment is now well and truly 'marked' by local canines. The dog owners must all believe that their delightful little pooch can't harbour anything nasty, but clearly haven't given a thought for people whose immune system is not as robust as theirs. If gay, or black, people were being effectively excluded from council facilities there would be an uproar; no one gives a fuck for the disabled.

(Racial and sexual communities have vocal lobby groups speaking for them; there isn't even an ombudsman to take up complaints raised under the Disabled Discrimination Act.)