Wheelchair Users Are Finally Winning the Right to Repair
I t took Casey Moore , who relies on his power wheelchair, four months to get it repaired in 2023—and six months, from 2024 to this year, more recently.
“It’s this hiccup in my whole life,” said Moore, who works with Oregon Spinal Cord Injury Connection. “I had to use this junk chair, waiting on a simple part that, if I had access to it, I could have been back up and rolling within the week.”
In a 2022 survey by the consumer advocacy network PIRG, 40 percent of wheelchair users reported waiting 7 weeks or longer for repairs—more than seven weeks of lost mobility and autonomy.
Power wheelchairs in the United States are under the control of a duopoly, the subject of a 2022 Mother Jones article by Paul Roberts. The firms, National Seating & Mobility and Numotion, are both owned by private equity investors; each boasts an estimated annual revenue of over $400 million. Responding to Roberts in 2022, both firms acknowledged delays but argued that speedy repair was the norm—and, in Numotion’s case, contended that repairs were unprofitable. (Neither firm replied to a request for comment for this article.)
A strong right to repair law, “should require the manufacturer to provide… access to all the parts, tools and information you need to conduct the repairs.”
