19 Nov 2017

Public toilet to be equipped for severely disabled

6:27 pm on 19 November 2017

The country's first public toilet equipped with height-adjustable, adult-sized change table and hoist for users with severe disabilities is to be built in the Hamilton Gardens.

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The public toilets will be equipped with a height-adjustable, adult-sized change table and a hoist for users with severe disabilities. Photo: 123RF

The fully accessible bathroom, which is being paid for by the city council, will also have a privacy screen and space to allow for two caregivers.

A woman whose daughter has severe disabilities, Jenn Hooper, lobbied to have it installed.

She said even hospitals and Ronald McDonald houses where she sometimes stayed with her daughter Charley did not have hoists and change tables for adults.

"There isn't anything that she can use, the disability bathrooms that you find in motels or anything don't mean anything to us, because there are a certain section of our society that can't hold their heads, can't sit up, can't hold their bodies in an upright position to sit up, as soon as that happens you've got to do everything lying down."

Ms Hooper said the facility would be open in the new year.

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