✨ Resident Life

At Friendship Village Chesterfield, if the resident has a powered chair that can be locked down, the resident may stay in the chair while boarding the bus on the lift and remain in the chair while the bus is in motion. If the resident has a scooter that can be locked down, the resident can board the bus on the scooter on the lift but must move to a passenger seat and have the scooter locked down. No chairs or scooters that cannot be locked down are allowed on the busses. Apparently, some chairs and scooters can be locked down and others cannot. If they can be locked down the resident can ride the lift to get in the bus. However, if the resident would prefer staff to get the chair or scooter on the bus, staff will do that for them.

Two of our smaller "buses" (a 13-passenger and a 14-passenger -- 14 being the passenger limit for a driver w/o doesn't have a commercial driver's license) have lifts for those in wheelchairs or scooters. (I think it's a correct observation that scooters are starting to proliferate in independent living.)

If your community uses buses with lifts for either independent living excursions or for transports to medical appointments, are the passengers seated in their personal motorized devices permitted to "drive" themselves onto the lift and then up into the vehicle for the driver to then lash them down?

Or, is the bus driver the one who must drive the motorized device up into the bus, lashing it down for it to remain empty. The device's owner either needs to be pushed aboard in a standard, manual wheelchair or must sit in a regular bus seat. The motorized device may be taken aboard to wind up at the destination; or, the passenger can rely on the standard chair for the whole trip and leave their motorized chair/scooter in the community's lobby.

The paragraph just above is a new policy here, causing confusion. I'd like to know how things work elsewhere in our CCRC world.

Thanks.

Jennifer Young