Winning My Appeal Should Set A Precedent.

Penelope Rosemont

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penelope_Rosemont 

This weekend has been enjoyable; receiving the letter from the Amsterdam Court and reading I had won my appeal case was quite incredible.

My decision had been to try to invest as little energy in it as possible, but nevertheless to persist in trying to get, what I perceived as a bad decision overturned.

It really is a shame that the Amsterdam Council department whose job, it is to provide the aids and facilities that disabled people need do not do this.

Instead of carrying out their brief they seem to spend their time and valuable public resources on seeing how and why they can refuse as many applications as possible.

Surely Amsterdam City Council wastes a lot of money doing this, when they would surely be operating in a more cost-effective manner by giving applicants what they need and when they need it.

I guess that has little to do with giving people what they need and more to do with exercising their control by applying bureaucratic nit picking.

Up to now nobody has contacted me about winning my case; I think that I shall send e-mails to everyone involved, that I have won my appeal.

This will go to my case manager Jacqueline and Annelies, the Amsterdam Council’s mobility advisor, as well as Maurits my occupational therapists and Janneke, one of the doctors at the Rehabilitation Clinic on the Overtoom, Amsterdam.

I'm quite curious as to when I will hear from the Amsterdam Council Department that deals with applications from the disabled.

Shame that I could not have been there, to see their reaction when they got their letter on Friday informing them they had lost the case.

Hopefully they will do something very soon as the weather is suddenly very warm, and I shall need the air conditioning as soon as possible.

In fact I could do with it now, as the temperature has suddenly shot up, this certainly seems to be the way it has gone these last few years, one day it is under 10° the following day it is over 20°.

No longer does it become gradually warmer, what tends to happen is that one day it is cold enough so that the heating is on, the next the windows has to be wide open as it has become hot.

Any changes in the temperature impacts heavily on me, and my body reacts immediately which causes me problems.

It would be nice if the council approached me this week to inform me when they will be installing the air conditioning.

The quicker that happens, the better for me and hopefully also for all the other people applying for air conditioning.

Winning my appeal against Amsterdam City Council will set a legal precedent that should be very useful to everyone else making an application for much needed air conditioning.

For me, as I'm sure it is for many others, air conditioning is not a luxury but a necessity as I need the temperature in the apartment to be constant.

Multiple sclerosis totally deregulates everything, the changes in temperature have an enormous effect on me, and I’m looking forward to keeping cool this summer.