Quebec labour shortage creates headaches for people who need adapted vehicles

Teri Lee Walters has been in a wheelchair since she was 13, paralyzed from the waist down.  She works one day a week as a patient aid and relies on disability pension for the rest of her income.

Since her last vehicle gave out two years ago, Walters has been able to get around using adapted transit.

But now Walters's mother, who has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and arthritis, has become more seriously ill.

"This summer she had pneumonia but didn't really fully recover. She kept getting a little worse. We eventually found out that she's in heart failure," Walters told CBC in an interview in her small but tidy apartment in NDG this week.

Walters's mother now needs a lot more help and has a lot more medical appointments.

"She lives in Châteauguay. I'm here in Montreal and to get back and forth and see her and to take care of her, I need a vehicle," Walters said.

"I can't be there in an emergency if she needs me. And right now she can barely make it down the hallway to go to the washroom. So I'm there to cook, clean, do everything I can," she said. 

"But I have my own life, and my own apartment to take care of. So I'm in desperate need of a way to get back and forth," she said.

The current labour shortage in Quebec is having a spinoff effect that means Walters may have to wait up to a year before she can get a vehicle properly adapted for her needs.

"That doesn't do me any good right now," Walters said.

"My mom took very good care of me when I became paralyzed at 13. I I want to take care of her now and give her the best quality of life that I can," she said.

Quebec's automobile insurance board, known by its French acronym the SAAQ, has a program that pays to adapt vehicles for people such as Walters.

In most cases, the SAAQ covers the entire cost.

People who want to have a vehicle converted must first get an evaluation report from an occupational therapist to determine what type of adaptation they need.