Dementia friendly? Not on the buses (From York Press)

Dementia friendly? Not on the buses

9:48am Tuesday 9th October 2012 in Letters By Reader's letter

I HAVE just heard that the No 5 in York will no longer go down Beckfield Lane. Does First York consider older people and those with dementia when they change bus numbers, routes and times?

I don’t think so.

It has taken us well over a year to help our father gain the confidence to use the bus into York after the change from No 1 to No 5 down Beckfield Lane. He has just this month started to take the bus to town by himself again. Now we have to start all over again – while he will get depressed, frustrated, loose his independence or end up lost in York if he does manage to get to town, as the return bus stop he has used for a long while will no longer be the same.

Older people, especially those with short-term memory problems, need things to be the same.

York has just announced in The Press that it is a Dementia Friendly City – I think not.

Please in future consider the elderly and those with memory problems – and remember one day you will get there.

Hazel Henderson, Boroughbridge Road, York.