Thank goodness that Andy Hicks was a pretty lousy painter, but a man with a vision who demanded better for folks with spinal cord injuries from a very young age.
If his young life in Connecticut would have taken a different path, the world would have been denied a United Spinal Association board member – and a passionate seating specialist who fought for durable medical needs for decades.
“I was 17 years old and got a job painting at New Britain Memorial Hospital in Connecticut – a hospital that warehoused people with disabilities,” he said. “This was before the independent living movement. Folks with spinal cord injury, cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy, post-polio patients on respirators – they weren’t going home, this was home.”
Rather that painting, Hicks found himself out on day trips with patients and their therapists, including a few that charmed his teen eyes, as he tells it.
“I was fired for not painting because I ran off with the recreation department too often,” he said. “But I came back as a patient aide the next year. I got to know people on a personal level. I knew in my heart that they deserved more independence.”
That led to a career as a wheelchair seating specialist – both as a dealer and as a sales representative for large companies, often leading sales for half the U.S. and parts of Canada. He learned about custom measuring, pressure mapping and how vital it is to make a person comfortable in the wheelchair they will be using for mobility.
Hicks is gratified that while he was with ROHO, the firm hired several sales reps with spinal cord injuries – folks who became tremendous sales people.
Hicks’ wife started as a physical therapist and became a neuroscientist specializing in brain injuries. They moved some for her work opportunities and while living in San Diego, he got involved in competitive sports for wheelchair athletes. That led to becoming active with the local chapter of the National Spinal Cord Injury Association (NSCIA).
“I had noticed that recently injured people were discharged to nursing homes with inferior rehabilitation instead of qualified spinal cord rehab centers. I joined to fight this injustice,” he said.
He joined the NSCIA in 2007. But the financial crisis that came shortly after had a negative impact on the NSCIA and created many challenges. When the advocacy group merged with United Spinal in 2011, he was one of the NSCIA board members who became a United Spinal board member.
“From working in the complex rehab technology industry, I observed the human impact of governmental and private insurance diminishing funding for equipment and supplies, year after year,” he said. “I joined NSCIA to help with political action to address the gaps and disparity within Medicaid, Medicare and private insurance – to try to change the injustice.”
“NSCIA has many chapters and a large membership and USA had a history with getting the ADA enacted plus the skills and drive that it took to make it what it is today. It’s one of those times when the result of two groups merging is much stronger,” Hicks said.
Now retired and living in Washington State, Hicks continues to think of ways to help those with SCI/D. The concept he hopes to see come to fruition is based somewhat on the successful Alcoholics Anonymous peer support model.
“When someone goes through rehab for alcoholism, you have a sponsor, a peer group — if you slip up, that peer meets you for breakfast, shares things that they did in their life to rehab,” he said. “I believe very firmly in reaching people soon, when they are in rehab and contemplating life as they are adjusting to a recent SCI.”
“You could set up a training program within rehab support groups,” he said, noting that a peer support person must have training to be able to speak appropriately to and share resources with a person with a recent SCI. “Similar to AmeriCorps VISTA, that trained person could get some pay. It would create jobs for trained rehab support people and they could use those skills for related careers. It would provide a person who has been there. That person could answer frank questions – on everything from family to housing to work to sexuality.”
