THE IMPORTANCE OF A LOO

We are being arrested by another kind of blue light, this time, however, in
public toilets to inhibit us using them as "shooting galleries". The light
apparently makes it difficult to find a vein.

For those of us constrained to spend a good part of our lives in public
toilets - sufferers of chronic gastro-intestinal diseases, say, who want to
continue living productive lives - the new, blue-light toilets represent a
nasty decline in an already unpleasant and difficult situation.

An affliction necessitating use of a toilet 30 times a day is demeaning
enough without having one's lot further demeaned by literally ghastly
lights. Whoever dreamt up that idea is either a sadist or, much more
likely, a person with very little conception of the conditions under which
the average public toilet user uses them.

Were I, for instance, not to have access to public toilets in the way I
currently have, I would either be unemployable and house-bound or on a
permanent intravenous drip for all my nutrition - which would cost the
state tens of thousands of dollars annually.

Toilets, humble devices as they are, are one of the many hidden mechanisms
by which a society maintains the freedom and dignity of its individuals and
which, in the long run, reduce the cost to the community as a whole of
otherwise "handicapped" people. The same argument applies to the
drug-dependent, for they too are handicapped by their dependency.

I have been told by a public transport provider of blue-lit toilets that
they are dealing with the "dregs" of society and blue lights are consistent
with the behavior of such people. Well, this particular dreg reckons that
all of us would be better served by a little sensitive institutional respect.

Associate Professor FRANK FISHER, Graduate School of Environmental Science,
Monash University, Clayton

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski