while reflecting on inclusive rehabilitation services in the country, one of the Commissioners from the Ministry of Health, Dr Upenytho George, shared that planning for persons with disabilities in the health sector has been minimal.
He shared that as a country, we have always budgeted and planned for reproductive health, malaria, non-communicable diseases, name it. Still, we have never thought of planning for persons with disabilities, especially on the issue of assistive devices to help these people live a normal life. Yet, we are all victims of becoming persons with disabilities.
The Mulago National Referral Hospital alone can produce about 40 wheelchairs per year, and this, Mr Nsimenta Denis, in charge of wheelchairs at the Orthopaedic workshop, shares this is due to limited funding.
Just imagine persons with disabilities who need wheelchairs, NUDIPU almost gets demands from persons with disabilities who need them on a daily but our hands are tied; they are readily available always, when we get well-wishers who donate some. Affording wheelchairs is costly. Often, people who need them can’t afford them.
When it comes to audiology assistive devices, getting these at a free cost seems to be far from reality. Persons with hearing impairment have to incur extra costs to get these devices.
For visual impairment, especially for people with low vision, the burden of having a pair of glasses has been left to the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), an NGO supporting the Ministry of Health to distribute reading glasses for free to support persons with low vision. Without them, the Ministry of Health cannot sustain distributing eyeglasses to those who need them.
However, some partners have gone ahead to start thinking of prevention by handling cases that are likely to cause disabilities in children at an early age.
Since there are many causes of disabilities, some partners have started supporting mothers to do early screening of their children to detect developmental delays.
According to the Health Specialist at UNICEF, Mr Fred Kagwire, they are empowering caregivers to continuously support these children to regain steady growth progress so that some of the delays that affect normal growth are handled immediately before they lead to permanent disabilities, and this has yielded results.
The children have been supported fully to ensure they live independently and introduce them to the environment around them and survive, like joining school, restoring their speech difficulties, and supporting them to walk among others. Constant therapies have also been conducted to ensure they rectify the anomalies.
The reflection meeting on the state of rehabilitation services in Uganda was organized by the National Union of Disabled Persons of Uganda – NUDIPU, with support from CBM Christian Blind Mission.
