Guest Author - Wollie Woehler

Neuromuscular diseases can have an effect on whether or not you will be employed and become a happy, productive worker. Different types of the diseases have different effects on people’s lives. In some instances it is so mild that it has no effect on the ability to find employment. For other persons small to more extensive, and expensive, alterations need to be put in place to accommodate the employee.

In South Africa employers are forced by law to employ disabled persons. Any company employing more than 50 people must have a specified number of disabled employees. On paper this sounds superb but in reality employers are still not very keen on meeting this law enforcement. I once applied for a job and was told that the other employees needed to be asked first whether or not they were happy to have a blind person working in the same office with them. This is of course a debatable point. If the old hands did not want a blind person with them in the office, they could make life very difficult for that person. On the other hand, I had as much right to employment as they had if I could do the work as well and be as productive as they were. When the unease of the unknown was passed and I could prove that I was as good a typist as they were, I enjoyed working there for 2 years.

Accessibility at the work place is a problem. Older buildings were built before the regulations stipulating that ramps, toilets for wheelchair users were passed as building rules. This is a very convenient excuse for an employer who does not want to employ someone in a wheelchair.

The moment a potential employer notices that the employee to be suffers from a deteriorating disease, no matter how slow it happens and in many instances it will be easy and inexpensive to accommodate the employee, they grab at this straw for not employing the candidate.

The opposite is true too. Some people think that they are entitled to employment just because they are disabled whether they are properly trained for the position or not. Such people drive me up the walls as all they are doing is closing doors for future well-trained, hard working persons to be employed at such companies.

In future articles we are going to talk about employment for disabled people with regard to training, transport, accommodation and whatever comes up. I hope for the day when disabled people will be part and parcel of the work force through out the world, and it can be achieved through hard work, open headed employers and people accepting the person regardless of his disabilities.

There are of course many disabled employers as well as other business men who are fully aware of the positive contribution disabled people can be, and already are where they are employed, to their companies.