An Angus woman has expressed her thanks to a Dundee bus company for helping her regain independence.
Judith Langlands-Scott was forced to use a wheelchair due to a medical condition which sees her joints dislocate.
She was given a manual wheelchair but was unable to propel herself as her fingers and shoulders kept dislocating due to the degenerative hyper mobile joint syndrome.
The Forfar mum of three said: “I have got a strange medical condition; sometimes my joints don’t work properly and I dislocate things very easily.
“Although I can walk, after years of dislocating things, it hurts a lot. I was first prescribed a manual wheelchair but can’t propel one myself.”
Judith’s life changed for the better in November when she received an electric wheelchair, but she lacked the skills or confidence to control it.
She said: “I’ve been incredibly lucky to be cared for by The Wheelchair Outreach Project at Ninewells Hospital and am now in possession of a brand new electric wheelchair.
“Luckily, the people at the project are amazing and give the likes of me lessons and a couple of weeks ago XploreDundee brought a double-decker bus to Ninewells especially for me to practice on.
“I can’t tell you what being able to take my wheelchair on a bus will mean to me. I had lots of lessons and had to pass a road safety test.
“I would have been too frightened to do that without the lessons and would never have used the bus. Since then I have got the bus from Forfar to Dundee, had lunch and came back. It was amazing. Life becomes so small when you can’t venture very far.
“Being able to go on a bus under my own steam opens up lots of opportunities for me in terms of employment. It is quite incredible a bus company does this.”
“I’m 46 years old and am desperate to get out and about. The fact Xplore offers this service is genuinely life-changing and I can’t thank them enough.”
Yvonne D’All, technical instructor for the NHS Tayside Wheelchair Outreach Project, said: “We are very grateful for the lovely feedback about the service.
“The NHS Tayside Wheelchair Outreach Project has been set up to help people living in Tayside who have substantial and permanent restrictions with outdoor mobility through illness or disability and do not qualify for an NHS powered wheelchair.
“We offer people advice and demonstrations, assistance and training.
“We also work closely with Xplore Dundee who provide great support to the service.”
Xplore Dundee managing director Elsie Turbyne said: “We work hard to make our buses accessible for as many customers as possible, and our mobility training is an important part of that.
“Our driving instructors have been offering bespoke training to people with electric scooters and wheelchairs for five years now and it is really fantastic to hear how life-changing this assistance can be for people.
“In fact, this project is so successful it has very recently been shortlisted for the Scottish Transport Awards in the category of Accessibility Project of the Year.
“This is well-deserved recognition for the hard work and customer service skills demonstrated by our training team.”
