Mammograms are routine. For people who use wheelchairs, they’re anything but [Video]

A Quebec disability advocacy group says people who use wheelchairs are getting turned away from mammograms clinics. The Regroupement des activistes pour l’inclusion au Québec says nearly half of 50 designated screening clinics it called in Montreal could not accommodate someone using a wheelchair.

The last time Martha Twibanire had a mammogram, she had to call three different clinics before finding one that would accommodate her wheelchair.

That was more than four years ago. The experience was so bad she hasn’t booked another since.

Twibanire said staff first tried to make her stand up rather than stay in her wheelchair, something she told them wasn’t possible. The staff seemed frustrated and unsure how to proceed after that, she said.

Then they took her breast, squeezed and pulled it to try to get it to reach the machine.

“Really, I was in pain, too much pain,” she said in an interview …