Currently, visual impairment has become quite publicised with the debate around providing relevant medication for the treatment of age-related macular degeneration.
Think now about issues of mobility in unfamiliar areas, undertaken, for example, in finding a job, now that the government wants people off the incapacity allowance.
The visually impaired need aids to access job opportunities, to travel from home to interview in an area that they do not know, help with locating safe road crossings and other problems of finding the appropriate entry to a building.
Close your eyes and try walking around your own house and you'll realise the problems involved. After all, you think you know your home, but in darkness you probably don't. If the mobility allowance were to be increased, the visually impaired would be enabled to either take a taxi or offer their friends or relatives financial recompense for their assistance.
Seventy-five per cent of
working-aged visually impaired individuals are out of work, albeit
some may not want to work, some are unable to work, but a significant percentage do.
This figure hasn't changed in 40 years which is a disgrace.
Obtaining adaptations for accessing printed material is costly, after all you cannot just pick up the newspaper and read. Help is available through access to work, but first of all you have to have the work to obtain the access, and there's the rub.
Schooling is now integrated, but once you leave you lose your access because education claims the aids back.
The whole issue of access and integration of visually impaired individuals needs to be joined up from cradle to grave, with appropriate adaptations available along the way.
KEITH KELSEY
Elmhirst Road
Horncastle