“It was the ugliest experience. I had a knot down in my stomach. I am a person who can say, but when I say off, I not at all heard.”
that is How it sounds from Susan Holm after her worst trip with the DSB ever.
a Week she takes the trip between Dublin, where she lives, and in Høje Taastrup, where her daughter, son-in-law and grandson live.
the 55-year-old Susan Holm, sitting in a wheelchair because of a rare genfejl, recently moved from Svendborg, because opportunities to travel spontaneously as a disabled person is far better Zealand.
even Though she has the opportunity to travel with a companion, is the freedom essential to her dignity.
“I just want to go where I feel free. It can’t be true that I, just because my legs don’t work particularly well, losing it, which I love most: It is moving freely,” explains Susan Holm.
Monday 9. december was Susan Holm’s expectations to the DSB’s handicapservice Zealand, however, made to be ashamed of.
More than once.
“It is a slap in the face with a cold cloth right in the face. All the joy and the hope, I had to move to Sealand, was taken from me.”
She must train ride from Høje Taastrup station at 17.42. She has checked the Itinerary and made sure that the train is indicated with the text ‘the train has low step’, so she knows that she can run a ramp out.
As the train rolls into the station, the rush she to the one end where the handicap ramp is, and press the small button on the outside of the train, which is indicated with a wheelchair.
When she pressed the button, nothing happens. She starts blinking with its lights in the hope that she will be seen.
the Train is running away.
Susan Holm calling to the DSB Handicapservice to ensure that she not have misunderstood her the opportunity to travel spontaneously. She gets to know that she should have given notice of its journey at least 12 hours before. Not enough with that the train has been running from her, then tells Handicapservice her is also a lie.
people with Disabilities should only notify their travel 12 hours in the field, if there is a need for a lift to get into the train. In addition, she gets to know that she must therefore wait at least 12 hours to get home.
Susan Holm’s daughter calling and complaining about the treatment her mother got.
DSB Handicapservice offer to knit a repatriation along to Susan Holm. But here it begins, according to Susan Holm, the first to go really wrong for the DSB.
She must, with a regional train from Høje Taastrup station to Copenhagen central Station. In Copenhagen, a staff member will take care of her, help her to train to Holbæk, where she must check with a lift.
But such a precursor to the trip itself, not quite.
When Susan Holm to Copenhagen central Station, there is no employee who is waiting for her. A second DSB-employee must go out and look for the helper.
at long last they are sitting in the train to Holbæk, but as she gets to know that there is someone to lift her out in Holbæk. She must, therefore, drive to Kalundborg, denmark, where she must wait for the train ride back, so the employee, to help with the lift when forward. Three quarter one way and three quarter the other way.
At. 23.30 runs Susan Holm from the train at Holbaek station from his home.
“My faith in the DSB is totally gone now. Every time I need to train, I have a big knot in the stomach,” says Susan Holm.
the DSB has informed B. T. that button, as Susan Holm has thought provides a message to the driver, merely a door opener, and that you, as a disabled person just to place themselves on the platform, so that the driver can see one.
But it leaves Susan Holm with an even greater fear of not being seen on dark days, as she has experienced, that it does not work to light with his torch.
“It is deeply regrettable. First and foremost, that the customer does not come with the train, as the train on the section between Høje Taastrup and Holbæk is a lavvognstog. And, moreover, that she does not come home in the fastest manner possible,” says the head of the stationsservice at DSB Jørgen Dyrendal Rasmussen.
Should the staff especially at the DSB Handicapservice not know the rules?
“oh, Yes, and therefore we have also tightened up the procedures so that staff gets a better feed. We have also previously improved procedures, so that the inspectors and drivers are more aware of the people who have the need for help on the platform,” he elaborates.
