Treating disabled as 'patients' leads to stigmas and discrimination

My life to a large degree has been structured in accordance with the social model of “people with disabilities”. I had felt no reason to place any belief in the ideas put forward by the medical model that would view me as inferior to society's norm. But more than ever, I am swayed to a certain degree, by realistic and pragmatic medical opinion. Is it because today I can now identify with a future?

Today I am 42-years-old, awaiting a PhD result, which would be a very high honour for even the most able-bodied of persons. I am sure that there will be some recognition of the achievement, but some will plainly refer to it as a novel action or illusion created by civil libertarians to further the need for social policy.

While there are severe limitations to the medical model, it is the case that most medically diagnosed impairments will require continued medical support. Medical doctors, medicines and therefore the medical models do have an impact on the lifestyles of “people with disabilities”. In this regard, the later (the medical model) should not be discounted.

For example, some time ago, around 1987, a friend of mine with Friedreich's Ataxia (the same disease I have) was to be married to the guy of her dreams (an able-bodied individual). But as she signed the register, she got too excited, and had a heart attack and died. In hindsight, the wedding was a beautiful moment, and the embodiment of the social model. But what should have been done to prevent the heart attack, remains within the medical model. In other words, it is the interaction between the medical and social models of disability that is important.

Today I feel totally focused, as I am concentrating on the outcomes that may be afforded me by my studies, while also still making time for needed forms of medical therapies, namely speech therapy. In the future I plan to incorporate more forms of medical therapies into my lifestyle in the hope of adequately sustaining my illness. Nevertheless, my goal is to ensure that such medical therapies are located within a broader social model.

Hugh Stretton has identified what he argues is the need for people to maintain the “correct balance” between the medical and social models of disability, if people with disabilities are to achieve a rewarding “quality of life”. That is, in all aspects of life it is necessary to try and keep the correct balance for success and happiness in all of life's pursuits. The correct balance will assist “people with disabilities” make necessary choices, about how and what to do in life, as many “people with disabilities” must create their lives around what they can do, not what they cannot. For example, today within the Higher Education sector I feel appreciated, and this will have a flow-on effect to many other parts of my life.

To succeed in today's society most actions by “people with disabilities” need the adequate collective assistance of the state. And only on rare occasions are such collective state empowered actions driven solely by either the social or medical models of “people with disabilities”. Hence, we are humans and are therefore too complex to have enough action put there by one political approach or model.

In conclusion, the correct balance between the social and medical models needs to be put in place if “people with disabilities” are to move forward. Therefore we should look to the less enlightened political processes of the medical model on its own as being consigned to history.