Crippen Cartoons cartoons at the cutting edge of disability

Disabled activist Doug Paulley strikes again, this time threatening legal action against government COVID rules that force residents of care homes to isolate for two weeks every time they attend a medical appointment or visit a shop, a hospital, or any other indoor settings.

Despite the government announcing that care home residents can now go for a walk or visit the garden of a friend or relative – as long as they are accompanied by a care worker or a “nominated” visitor – the strict rules on other visits have not changed.

Doug has also told managers at his Leonard Cheshire care home in Yorkshire that he will not be obeying the government’s “patronising, excessive and discriminatory” guidance and that he plans to ignore the rules.

Like other residents at the care home, he has followed the strict guidance on social distancing throughout the pandemic, but now the country is easing out of lockdown, and residents have been vaccinated, he believes the government guidance is “excessive” and a “cynical” response to the criticism of ministers’ failure to protect care homes early in the pandemic.

He told the Disability News Service (DNS): “I have reached the decision that I am just not going to comply. It feels patronising and excessive and puts such a restriction on people’s lives. It also feels open-ended, disproportionate and discriminatory, and stereotypes people in care homes. That’s why this is important to me.”

He added: “It’s our home, it’s our life. It seems bizarre that just because we are in a care home setting, we are treated in such a patronising way.”

You can read the full story in DNS

Description of cartoon for those using screen reading software

A large Leonard Cheshire care home dominates the landscape. Each window has bars behind which you can see disabled people peering out. There are marks on the ground in front of the building leading to a large hole out of which Doug Paulley is emerging. He is wearing a DAN cap and DPAC t-shirt and is holding aloft a large sign which reads ‘Free our people’. One of the people in a window is saying: ”Trust Doug to find a way out around the isolation rule!”