Meijer stores haven’t been as proactive and effective about getting vaccines and masks out to the public for those with disabilities, according to findings by the Department of Justice.
A settlement was reached last week after the DOJ reviewed the grocery chain’s vaccine website.
According to a release from the department, the website to sign up for a vaccine appointment was “not accessible to people with certain disabilities, including those who use screen reader software or have a hard time using a mouse.”
It also said because of those problems, people using screen readers were unable to put in basic information to make an appointment, such as their name, date of birth and zip code, essentially making it impossible to get a vaccine.
“The Internet access has to be adaptable to a whole range of technology that people have, because there’s there’s more than one kind of device that people have to gain access to that information,” said Mark McWilliams with Disability Rights Michigan. “And that’s just getting signed up.”
The settlement is the latest in a series of settlements with pharmacies such as Kroger and Rite-Aid, but it’s also the latest in ways people with disabilities have had trouble getting vaccines across the state, despite being some of the most at-risk from the virus.
“The access issues that you would find are things like being you know, once you’re there, physical access, if there are steps if there are doorways, you can’t get through there are not places to set,” McWilliams said. “We had one complaint from a person who said that they had to stand in line for 30 minutes and because of the disability, it was very difficult for them to stand that long. There’s an issue about being able to bring assistance with you.”
Meijer declined to comment on the settlement.