A free, personalized toilet card should offer a solution for the many MS patients to get priority access to toilets. Rianne Meerschaert from Breda developed it because she was always laughed at when she got ahead. She has intestinal problems, which makes it difficult for her to hold back her urine. “You feel so mortified.”
Ryan has MS. That disease has affected her bowels and bladder so badly that she always has to go to the toilet quickly. She therefore received a general toilet pass from her nurse, which was supposed to ensure understanding. But that is often hard to find, she says. “People don’t believe me and say: nice that pass, but we all have to go to the toilet.”
“She then apologized. But still… You feel so hurt.”
She says that it happened in Den Bosch during the eleventh of the eleventh. “There was a very long queue at the toilet car. I would never manage that.” She walked forward with a friend and explained the situation. “That girl looked at that card and asked suspiciously, what do you have? When I said I have MS, she looked me up and down and started laughing.”
Rianne had no time for discussion. She ran into the first toilet that became available. “I thought: I’ll see who I’m arguing with.” Luckily that worked out afterwards. Her friend had already explained everything. “Then the woman did apologize. But still… You feel so hurt.”
Rianne therefore thought that it would be good if there were a personalized toilet card. Something like this already exists, but it is not free.
“I already hear from people that they are happy that they are finally understood.”
Together with Coloplast (a company for medical devices), the MS fund and the National MS Association, Rianne has therefore developed a free toilet pass. “Thanks to the personal details you can prove that the pass belongs to you. And the logos of the major MS organizations are on it, so it comes across as trustworthy.”
People with MS can apply for the pass free of charge until June 9. So far 2000 people have done that. It is currently still a trial for MS patients only, but Rianne hopes that eventually there will be a free universal toilet pass. “I already hear from people who are in the same boat that they are happy that they are finally understood. And that’s what you do it for.”
