PEI People First issue 'personal rights' cards
Patrick Faller | CBC News | Posted: March 30, 2016 9:22 PM | Last Updated: March 31, 2016
Advocacy group PEI People First hopes cards will help Islanders who feel disrespected
Several dozen members of PEI People First received a new pocket-sized "personal rights" card Wednesday during a day-long advocacy forum for people with intellectual disabilities.
The hope is the new cards will give Islanders with intellectual disabilities more respect when dealing with health-care professionals.
Lloyd Lefurgey, a member of the Charlottetown-based advocacy group PEI People First, came up with the idea after he sought medical help for mental health issues.
He said he was prescribed medication, but was in hospital for more than a year. He was healthy enough to return home, he said, but was held longer because of his disability. He said he has family members who have been in similar situations.
Organizers said anyone with an intellectual disability should hand the card to health-care professionals when they feel they're being disrespected.
"We still see people living unnecessarily in hospitals, group homes, community care facilities," said Ann Wheatley, an adviser for PEI People First.
"They're having their right to make their own decisions about where they live taken away from them. They're being assumed not to have the capacity to make decisions."
The card makes references to the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities, including "we have the right to make decisions for ourselves [and] choose where we live and who we live with."
Lefurgey hopes the card will help protect those rights within the health-care system.
"Just get your voice heard, or get what you need out of the system so you can have a healthy life," he said.