Access All: Disability News and Mental Health

An A&E consultant, a psychiatrist, and two junior doctors swap notes on being disabled in the medical profession. Emergency medicine consultant, Dr Cieran McKiernan, speaks on the perils of self-diagnosis. He lost his leg after failing to treat a blister which became a 5cm-sq hole in his foot. Trainee GP, Dr Hannah Barham-Brown's wheelchair means she's regularly mistaken for a patient, while D...

In a week where a tweet about a London pub went viral after a member of staff told a customer “we don’t serve disabled people”, meet the Mathies. Ben Mathie loves live music but venue options are limited because he’s only 12-years-old and uses a wheelchair and venues are often inaccessible. He was a regular at gigs in the local pub, The Harrow Inn Freehouse in Boughton, Nottinghamshire, before pla...

The Shalva Band were favourites to represent host country Israel at Eurovision but pulled out when the dress rehearsal was scheduled for Friday - the Jewish holy day of rest. The group of eight musicians, who all have disabilities, had been voted through on a national TV programme. Their popularity rose at the same time research revealed 90% of parents in Israel didn't want their offspring to atte...

Natalie Pearson is a primary school teacher and one of a few in the world to also have Tourette's syndrome. Tourettes causes her to swear, sometimes in class, and also jerk her body - but she says her students and colleagues have embraced it The science teacher was diagnosed with late-onset Tourette's syndrome at the age of 21 and believes a traumatic rape at university was the trigger. Natalie's...

From being a working class disabled person to waiting for that brown envelope to arrive for your benefits reassessment. This show, recorded in front of a live audience, moves from one emotion to another. Comedian Jackie Hagan describes how she went from feeling she had to prove she could still do everything and more, after having one leg amputated, to realising she didn't actually have to become a...

Getting rid of single-use straws is a simple way to reduce plastic waste...unless you're one of the thousands of disabled people who rely on them everyday to drink independently. From bamboo to pasta, glass to metal, there's a variety of alternatives already out there, but do any of them actually work? After a petition emerged this week calling for McDonald's to reinstate its plastic straws becaus...

Have you ever been lost in a passionate moment only to realise your hips are about to dislocate? Well, Xandra Lee has been in that precarious place more times than she'd like to remember and set about writing a sex and relationships manual for people with 'dodgy hips'. Diagnosed with hip dysplasia as a teenager, she quickly realised there was no information out there - medical or otherwise - for s...

Martin O'Brien has lived beyond his life expectancy twice - first at the age of five, and then again at 30. He was born with the life-limiting disease, cystic fibrosis. Now aged 31, he identifies as a Zombie - half-dead and half-alive - which he tries to convey through his physical artwork - he even spent his 30th birthday in a morgue, for art's sake. Sometimes controversial, he talks about how he...

London poet Raymond Antrobus was thought to be dyslexic with severe learning disabilities, until his deafness was discovered at the age of six - this week he won the Ted Hughes Award for new work in Poetry (hence why we're repeating this fab interview). At school, the hearing kids taunted him because he had to sit at the front to hear the teacher, and deaf kids called him a "baby signer" because h...

After years on the circuit, American comedian Tim Renkow has just released his first TV series - Jerk. The BBC Three show follows a "heightened" version of Renkow, who has cerebral palsy. TV Tim is "too lazy" to sort out his own visa, so instead he plays on and uses his disability to mess with people and take advantage of every situation. Tim reveals to BBC Ouch how much truth was behind the sitco...

Suzanne Bull loves live music. But after several accidents, including getting crushed at a gig, she wanted to challenge venues that weren’t accessible to her and other disabled music fans. Taking matters into her own hands she started up Attitude is Everything in 2000 - a disability-led charity that aims to improve Deaf and disabled peoples’ access to live music venues. Since then, she’s been made...

We already knew it anyway, but the hashtag #DisabledPeopleAreHot has gone viral - about time too. People from around the world have been rocking their best looks and posting them proudly on social media for everyone to see. Originator of the hashtag, Andrew Gurza, gives us the lowdown on his hope for the movement, the 'merch' he's going to get made for it and how it's a lot more than just a flash...

"A kick in the gut" is how Actor Jack Binstead describes his initial response to news that daughter Daisy has osteogenesis imperfecta (brittle bones) like him. But now he thinks differently. Pippa Bolton and husband describe themselves as having learning disabilities - Pippa joins us to talk about the six month fight to be allowed to bring her daughter Rain home from hospital. They now have two ch...

The hashtag #ThingsDisabledPeopleKnow has gone viral in the last few days. Started in America by Imani Barbarin a week ago, it's got tweeters from all corners of the disability community and globe sharing those annoyances disabled people know, but which might never occur to anyone else. We hear from Imani about why she started it in the first place, why Damon thinks people break wind in his presen...

As Annalisa D’Innella’s sight deteriorates, people become more awkward around her. Why is this and what can she do about it? UK teen Tilly Griffiths had some awkward conversations when arranging 24-hour care for university in America but spoiler alert, she got there. And Jordan Statham’s standoffs with teachers were pretty #awkward before he was diagnosed autistic. One raised five million pounds f...

Thriller writer Liz Nugent deals in dark worlds with flawed characters, but she has experienced her fair share of challenges and tough times too. After falling from the stair banister aged six onto her brother’s tricycle she experienced a brain haemorrhage. A second accident in her 20s triggered Dystonia, a condition which causes the muscles in her leg to uncomfortably contract, making walking dif...

Happy New Year from the BBC Ouch team! As a little treat, we thought we’d give you another chance to listen to some of our fabulous performers on BBC Ouch: Storytelling Live at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2018. Going out is meant to be fun, but add in an unpredictable disability or mental health problem and you could have an unwanted challenge or serious embarrassment on your hands - especially...

Merry Christmas from the BBC Ouch team! As a little gift to you from us, we thought we’d give you another chance to listen to some of our fabulous performers on BBC Ouch: Storytelling Live at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2018. Going out can be fun, but add in a disability or mental health problem and it can become fraught with challenges - and embarrassment - if these real-life tales are anything...

It’s Christmas Eve and you’ve missed your flight – technically it’s your fault – but would you play the ‘disability card’ to try and get another for free? And what would you do at the work Christmas party if you desperately needed the accessible toilet but saw a couple heading into it - together? BBC headliners Frank Gardner and Gary O’Donoghue and Touretteshero, Jess Thom, reveal all in this game...

From the young blind YouTuber whose make-up channel led her to being the poster girl for Cover Girl to the man who found out he has MS at the same time as having his first child. Why our guests all seem to have a bit of a crush on their surgeon, the buildings round the world which recently lit-up purple to show support for disabled people and Derek Paravacini our star pianist who is sometimes call...

Eye-opening stories from three people who "wear a bag" instead of being able to use the toilet naturally. Thousands of people have them in the UK and, permanent or temporary, it is as a result of ill health within the digestive system. Hear why one person likes to pop the undigested peas she finds in her bag, and about the process which leaves you with a Barbie butt. YouTube star Hannah Witton, an...

Why does self-employment often suit disabled people better than the nine to five? Three winners of this year’s Stelios Award describe their businesses, explain why they like working for themselves and give tips for future disabled business-owners. BBC Ouch's Emma Tracey meets Joshua Wintersgill, who has developed an aircraft sling for wheelchair users, chocolatier Samona Williams and Rachel Shapey...

There She Goes, a BBC Four comedy series about raising a learning-disabled child, has just ended. In this week’s Ouch podcast, the man who wrote it, Shaun Pye, meets journalist William Kremer, who wrote about his own learning-disabled daughter for the BBC. Shaun describes some of the real life events that inspired the series – like his regular encounters with his well-meaning but hapless neighbour...

The Great British Bake Off contestant Briony Williams has a missing left hand but some viewers didn’t spot it until episode three. How did she get by in that famous tent without any help or disability adjustments? BAFTA-nominated Ruth Madeley is currently filming with Emma Thompson, but in the summer she made a Horizon documentary about her impairment, spina bifida. Ruth got to watch pioneering su...

Beatboxing has long been associated with the hip hop world. But creating beats is not only a form of self-expression; it could help to unlock the full potential behind the human voice, especially for those with a speech impediment. We’re exploring how a music class for disabled children at The Lavelle School for the Blind in New York City uses beatboxing as an effective form of speech therapy. Jam...