Law Office of Lainey Feingold
Disability Rights Legal Advocacy

We urge the Board to adopt language in the area of self-service kiosks that will ensure that people with disabilities have real access to the new built environment – the environment where one machine dispenses prescriptions, another boarding passes, and yet another allows a student to select college classes.— Comments to the U.S. Access Board

The United States Access Board is currently considering proposed changes to the ADA Accessibility Guidelines (ADAAG) that would require certain self-service kiosks to be accessible to people with disabilities. Based on their experience with Talking ATMs and tactile point of sale devices, the Law Office of Lainey Feingold and Linda Dardarian of Goldstein, Demchak, Baller, Borgen & Dardarian, prepared comments on the Board’s proposal for use by persons interested in accessible devices. Those comments, all or parts of which were incorporated into submissions filed with the Board by several organizations, are posted here.

On July 29, 2010, the United States Access Board will hold a public meeting about accessibility standards to be developed for diagnostic medical equipment. This meeting marks the beginning of a rule making process on these issues mandated by the federal health care bill passed in March, 2010.

In this post you can read the press release announcing the meeting, at which Lainey Feingold will be a panelist. Accessible medical equipment is crucial to the health and safety of people with disabilities. The Board’s rulemaking process should allow for public input on a wide range of issues such as the need for mammography equipment and dental chairs that can be accessed by wheelchair users, and the need for blood glucose meters and similar devices that can provide information in a format blind people can access.

The disability community lost a strong advocate on April 6 when San Francisco Human Rights Commissioner August J.P. Longo died unexpectedly in his home. In addition to his Commissioner title, August was well known for his role on the City’s Access Appeals Board, his position as Regional Director of the State Democratic Party, and other activism in state and local politics. Less known was his advocacy for accessible health care. It was in this capacity that my co-counsel Linda Dardarian and I came to know and appreciate August Longo.

On March 15, 2010 CNN posted an article about the use of iris scanners in a low income Bronx health clinic to prevent mix-ups among the patients. The high tech iris scanner, usually seen only in airport security systems, is an important and useful tool for the Bronx clinic, and a welcomed one in an under-served community. At the same time, this article is yet another reminder that technology advances in the health field have the potential to leave people with disabilities behind. If you don’t have an iris, an iris scanner cannot help you.

The Law Office of Lainey Feingold congratulates the lawyers and activists who used Structured Negotiations to hammer out a landmark agreement on hospital access for people with disabilities at two major Boston medical facilities. A press release announcing the accessibility initiative was issued on June 26, 2009. Kudos especially to Dan Manning, Litigation Director of Greater Boston Legal Services, who championed the Structured Negotiations approach to resolve the the Boston Hospital accessibility claims.

A group of disability rights lawyers and advocates has announced the creation of The Barrier Free Healthcare Initiative, a collaborative effort to support legal and policy initiatives aimed at eliminating the physical and programmatic barriers that people with disabilities face in obtaining healthcare. More information is available at the new website launched by the initiative. The initiative was launched to coincide with the announcement of a landmark settlement with two