by Parimala Srikanteshwara
As a woman from a diverse culture, I acquired vision loss in mid adulthood because of a road traffic accident. Initially I couldn’t identify myself as disabled and let others know my difficulties. This was due to the fear of being rejected and isolated by my own community, which believes disability/chronic illnesses as the result of past actions. The stigma associated with disability, specifically for women with disability, is much greater and often women are left neglected without treatment.
This occurred with me as well when I was told the rest of my life is useless and dependent on informal care. I was not allowed to express my health concerns as they were dismissed saying it is all common and that I should be thankful for being alive. I wasn’t given any rehabilitation, nor was I connected to peer support which would have provided me the much-required hope to sail through the sudden vision loss and disfigurement.
Presently, I face barriers in accessing culturally appropriate supports. In my culture, women are not comfortable in discussing health concerns, particularly women’s health issues, in front of men. But at times hospital staff and specialists are loud in asking my symptoms before male interns. In other instances, my health problems are not seen as impacting my daily life more severely due to my disability and advice is given which is hard to be performed by myself without support. I am asked to chart my fluid intake and bladder diary, which is hard for me due to vision impairment and memory issues.
In these challenging times, I learnt about BCA’s Women’s Branch. There I feel connected and can express myself safely. I hope to become involved in BCA’s future endeavours of engaging with multicultural women from different backgrounds. I look forward to taking a part in creating cultural awareness within the vision impaired community.