New Disabled Toilet 'Designed For Dignity'

A local mum says she is delighted the island's first Changing Places Toilet has opened at the Ron Short Centre.

Jan Aslet has been campaigning for better bathrooms for disabled islanders, for more than a decade.

She began asking about them when her son Jack, who has mobility issues, was 13 - he is now 24.

The 'Changing Places' certification means the facility, which officially opened yesterday (22 August), has to have specific modifications to assist those with mobility issue and their carers.

These include:

• A height-adjustable toilet with support rails to help users stand.
• Around 12 square metres of space, to allow free movement for multiple people when necessary.
• A height-adjustable sink for wheelchair users to access.
• An adult-size changing bench for comfort and hygiene.
• A strong ceiling track hoist to help lift and move around the room.

Jan says this will improve many local lives, including her son's:

"Because there were no facilities available to change him before, it resulted in him being changed on a wet unhygienic public toilet floor.

Sometimes people don't even want to go in a public toilet, so actually laying your loved one down on the floor, it's just not nice at all."

Jan gave a speech about the importance of dignity for the disabled to the crowd that attended the opening before Ron Short Centre members gave tours of the new facility.

There are three of these toilets in Jersey and hundreds across the UK.

Jan hopes more will appear in the Bailiwick:

"I'm realistic, so I don't expect every place to have a changing places toilet, but it would be nice to have one in town.

I'd like to see this as the first of many."

The toilet is currently only accessible to members of the Ron Short Centre - something that Chair Kelvin Hudson hopes will change:

"Our aspiration is to get the States to provide a little bit of funding so that it can become open to members of the public - with 24-hour security.

But at the same time, I know the States are very short on funds."

The Centre next to Beau Sejour was built in the 1970s to help people with disabilities live fuller, more independent lives.

It currently undergoing a major rebuild and rebranding to "UnLtd".