A new report says Alabama could be doing more for residents who are disabled. The financial website Wallethub says a new study shows our state has several cities that rank low on accommodating citizens with special needs. Montgomery, Mobile, Huntsville, and Birmingham did poorly in the study. The report looked at issues like affordable housing, wheelchair accessible trails, and the number of doctors per capita. Analyst Chip Lupo says there are improvements and solutions that Alabama can make to improve in the healthcare area.
“Again, it starts at the local level, local,” he said. “Local and state governments need to do more funding, particularly for the quality hospitals, hiring more special specialists like occupational therapists and, again, special education teachers. That tends to get overlooked a lot.”
Overpark, Kansas led the survey for the highest number of employed people with disabilities and the lowest number of disabled residents living in poverty. Laredo, Texas had the lowest cost for a doctor visit. Chris Lupo says taking a look at the higher ranked cities would be a good start …
So that's so if I'm in one of these cities in Alabama, I would take a look at what some of these top cities, Scottsdale, Arizona, Minneapolis, Columbus, Ohio, what they're doing, and maybe implement some of those ideas to try to better their situations, for dis, for people with disabilities,
Alabama ranked poorly twice for cities with the fewest family medicine physicians. Huntsville and Birmingham, the home of UAB Hospital, are both listed among the bottom five in the Wallethub survey.
