Kildare woman refused urgent toilet access forced to urinate in carpark
Maria Crowe who suffers with painful bladder syndrome was on RTE Radio One's Drive Time recently to campaign for nationwide 'No Wait Cards'
by Rachel Kavanagh · Leinster LeaderKildare woman Maria Crowe suffers with severe bladder issues and is currently campaigning for 'No Wait Cards' to be implemented to help herself and thousands of others across the country.
Maria was on RTE's Drive Time recently to share her experience living with painful bladder syndrome and being denied access to a toilet when out in public.
Maria is campaigning for a new bill which is before the Dáil which aims to ensure staff toilet access for those with chronic illnesses.
This comes in the form of a 'No Wait Card' which can be shown to members of staff in times of emergency and allows someone to use a staff only toilet when they need it.
This card currently has no legal standing in Ireland.
There is no cure for Maria's condition which is an inflammatory condition that causes severe pain. It means Maria needs to use the toilet very frequently and urgently.
"When I'm out somewhere and I urgently need a toilet, like a retail park or that, I was constantly being refused entry into toilets because they were staff only and there was no public toilets anywhere around," Maria said on Drive Time.
"Last year I had a very bad flare-up like it was weeks upon weeks of needing urgent toilet access. I was at a retail park and I explained to the girl on the floor which you know you have to explain a medical condition to a stranger and I was having a particularly bad day and I said to her like I'm in immense pain I really need to go and she'd quoted the same thing again staff only."
Maria said on Drive Time that she was a customer of the store at the time and was pushing a shopping trolley to purchase some items when her bladder issues arose.
"She said to me 'oh there's a McDonald's or something five minutes drive away' and I was trying to explain to her like, 'listen I don't have a five minutes drive, I'm in quite a lot of pain,' and no they just wouldn't let me use the toilet.
"Unfortunately like I had to go outside into the retail car park and open the two doors of my car like and just pee there and that's the situation that I find myself in."
Maria created a Facebook page to campaign for the 'No Wait Cards' where she has received countless messages from people in a similar situation; some who are even housebound because of the lack of public bathrooms.
"Through the page that I set up, a lot of people with Crohn's have also said that they don't go anywhere during the flare-up at all or they have to kind of plan it like a military operation.
"Say if I'm going somewhere unfamiliar I have to look up you know is there a toilet or is there a garage and I have to ring ahead to make sure because I've been caught a few times that they have a toilet and then I get there the toilet's locked. Another time they couldn't find a key.
"So it's like not only do you have a medical condition but it's the actual stress of if you need to go somewhere you have to put in a whole pile of recon first or else you have to ring ahead just to doubly make sure.
"So that's basically the situation that I find myself in and thousands of others have contacted me with the same issue," Maria said on Drive Time.
Maria said that having a 'No Wait Card' implemented nationwide would mean a huge deal of independence, freedom, peace of mind for her and thousands of others.
Maria has been in contact with Labour TD for Kildare Mark Wall who suffers from Crohn's disease himself.
They realised, according to RTE, that it could potentially take many years for local authorities to have more public toilets in place so that's why they decided to go the route of 'No Wait Cards'.
They are both campaigning for these cards to be issued through GPs or the HSE and to have some legal standing.
According to a report by RTE, earlier this year Mark Wall introduced a private member's bill in the Dáil called the Equal Status Access to Toilet Facilities Bill.
This is bill is still in the early stages.