The story of Margreet and Carlijn

10-year-old Carlijn is one of Margreet and Maarten’s daughters. Carlijn is very sociable, has severe multiple disabilities and she is in a wheelchair. She moves with difficulty and cannot talk. She operates a speech computer with her eyes. The family leads a busy life and enjoys going out together. Even ordinary things are an outing for them like shopping in a big city.

But they are very active in their leisure time anyway. Margreet says: ‘We go to the theatre and the cinema. And we also like to visit zoos. A big outing for us is a day trip to an amusement park like the Efteling and Toverland’. A big problem with those outings, however, is that Carlijn cannot go to a regular toilet. This therefore leads to a lot of hassle in reality.

Mother Margreet says: ‘I think it’s important that I can take care of Carlijn in a humane way when we go out as a family. Fortunately, this is possible with a horizontal toilet facility where there is a hoist, a high-low stretcher, a wheelchair-accessible toilet and a high-low washbasin. This is already very common in England, but unfortunately not yet in the Netherlands. We hope that many more day attractions will follow because a Changing Places Toilet has a big impact on us as a family going out together.’