PHM-Exch> PHA3 - conclusions from Workshop on right to health of persons with disabilities

[sunil deepak]

The workshop on right to health of persons with disabilities held on 8 July
2012 at the third Peoples Health Assembly in Cape Town saw persons with
disabilities, academics and persons from CBR and disability programmes come
together to discuss the barriers to access to health services. The speakers
included Dr Eugene Mahlehle from WHO, Prof. Leslie Swartz and Prof. Sooraya
Maart. The workshop conclusions included the following:

Persons with disabilities face continuing barriers to access specific
rehabilitation services and also the general health services. Barriers are
not only physical, they are also about attitudes, lack of skills,
communication, lack of transport, poverty, lack of information...

In all groups of persons who face discrimination, from the ethnic groups to
poor, women and GLBTI groups, there are persons with disabilities who face
even greater barriers, and are the silent and forgotten minority. Unless
health workers and service providers can go out to look for them and engage
them in a dialogue, it will not easy to understand the barriers that they
face. As one disabled person said, "If we, all the persons with
disabilities, were together in a country, we would be the third largest
country of the world."

If you are planning health promotion, ask yourself are your messages
accessible to blind persons and deaf persons? If you are planning disease
prevention, make sure that your health workers know that children and
adults with disabilities need vaccinations and advice on diabetes and
hypertension. If you are planning reproductive health services, remember
that women and men with disabilities also need them. Any health care
activity you are involved in, ask yourself are children, adults and elderly
persons with disabilities able to access it? A world that is inclusive of
needs of persons with disabilities, will be a better place to live also for
elderly persons, for pregnant women, for families with small children, for
everyone.

The Convention on Right of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) approved by UN
in 2006 asks for right to health for persons with disabilities.

Neoliberal globalization and economic crisis are affecting also the already
insufficient services for persons with disabilities. Persons with
disabilities, their organisations, persons and organisations involved in
CBR and other disability and rehabilitation programmes need to join forces
with Peoples Health Movement and other movements trying to resist it and
ask for universal access to health services and right to health for all.

Sunil Deepak
Workshop Coordinator
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