NCART, VGM Group Team to Celebrate ADA’s 30th Birthday

• By Laurie Watanabe
• Jun 11, 2020

NCART and The VGM Group are partnering to mark the 30th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) this July.

Pres. George H.W. Bush signed the ADA into law on July 26, 1990.

In a news announcement of the partnership, NCART said the ADA “was intended to ensure that any individual was not socially defined or limited in life by a disability. For those who rely on the equipment and services provided by the Home Medical Equipment and Complex Rehab Technology (CRT) industry, the ADA is a promise only fulfilled when they have appropriate access to maintain their independence and protect their health.”

The campaign was launched in May and will run through July 26 to “highlight the importance of equipment that meets an individual’s needs and how the ADA’s intent is a theme of our industry initiatives.”

The campaign began with a video featuring retired Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), one of the ADA’s original sponsors.

“Employment, transportation, accessibility and communication would be protected and held to a standard that not only supported but encouraged individuals of every level of ability to achieve their goals,” Harkin said in the video when describing the ADA. “More than that, the ADA recognized the need for all of us to understand and respect the differences in one another and allowed us to celebrate how those differences — great or small — make us stronger when we all work together.”

NCART Executive Director Don Clayback noted that the end of the ADA campaign will be followed closely by National CRT Awareness Week, Aug. 10-14.

“Those five days,” Clayback said, “are designed to create additional opportunities for providers, manufacturers, clinicians, and consumers to collectively share the indispensable nature of CRT with policy makers and will include a grassroots advocacy event raising Congressional support for key CRT initiatives.”