Ghana Disability Forum push for Quality Health Delivery System in Ghana

In Ghana Persons with disabilities often have difficulty in receiving proper healthcare they need comparing to other citizens who do not have disabilities.

When compared to the general population, persons with disabilities have lower life expectancy, higher morbidity, and more difficulty finding and obtaining healthcare in Ghana.

The Ghana Disability Forum, an intellectual based and advocacy grouping at its midweek discussions, highlighted those concern to push for action and reforms in the healthcare sector.

The theme of the discussion was “health delivery system and persons with disabilities”.

It came to light that, there is very limited evidence on the organisation of healthcare services for persons with disability as there are currently no well‐designed studies focusing on organising the health services of persons with disability and concurrent physical problems.

Also, there are very few studies of organizational interventions targeting persons with disabilities and the results of those that were found need corroborative.

Ghana Disability Forum called for an urgent need for high‐quality health services research to identify optimal health services for persons with disabilities.

The Forum called for immediate establishment of active sign language specialists in the hospitals, need assistive tool to make the health environment disability friendly, National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) must take a look at PWDs and how they can be supported in terms of cost, Encourage more PWDs to enroll in health institutions and contact other NGOs that provide assistive devices to help PWDS.

TodayGhanaNews can authoritatively state that, there is very limited evidence on the organisation of healthcare services for persons with disabilities in Ghana and there are currently no well‐designed studies focusing on organising the health services of persons with disability and concurrent physical problems.

The call by Ghana Disability Forum is a wake-up call for government of Ghana, NGOs and policy formulators to urgently look at the need for high‐quality health services research to identify optimal health services for persons with disabilities in Ghana.

One of the biggest challenges persons disabilities in Ghana face is accessing unfriendly nature of healthcare infrastructure.

Most of the discussants lamented that most healthcare facilities in Ghana lack ramps, wheelchairs, disability-friendly delivery beds, appropriate separate toilets for PWDs and sign language interpreters to assist in examination tables, medication and healthcare providers’insensitivity and lack of knowledge.

Several accounts of the Forum member indicated that some healthcare providers were not only rude and insensitive but also they appeared ill-prepared to address the needs of persons with disabilities because most health professionals were not trained to understand disability and to provide care to persons with disabilities in Ghana.

Source: Seth Addi/TodayGhanaNews