Health challenges faced by people with disabilities: Morgen Makombo Sikwila

There is an urgent need to address health inequities faced by people with disabilities. Individual countries are failing to meet health priorities of people with disabilities. Health equity for people with disabilities should be a priority for the health sector.

The majority of people with disabilities are likely to die 20 years earlier than others; have poorer health-with double the risk of conditions such as diabetes, obesity, stroke, poor oral health depression and experience more limitations on their everyday functioning.

Gaps in service availability, including primary care and specialised services, in different contexts and locations, can disproportionately affect people with disabilities. Coverage of many public health interventions is significantly lower among people with disabilities compared to the general population.

 People with disabilities experience higher health costs due to greater health needs, gaps in health insurance and social protection coverage and added associated costs such as transportation, support persons and assistance.

 Higher costs result in unmet needs for health services; reduced access to timely care and support; interrupted treatment, inability to pay necessary assistive devices or delayed repairs and increased reliance on support from poor family members.

People with disabilities experience ableism, stigma and discrimination in all facets of life, which affect their physical and mental health.

  Laws and policies may deny them the right to make their own decisions and choices, allowing a range of harmful practices in the health sector, such as forced sterilization, involuntary admission and treatment and even institutionalization.

Poverty, exclusion from education and employment and poor living conditions all add to the risk of poor health and unmet health care needs among people with disabilities. 

People with disabilities are at risk from non-communicable diseases such as lung cancer (as a result of smoking), poor diet, alcohol consumption, drug and substances abuse and lack of physical activity.

This group of special people are face barriers in all aspects of the health system, for instance: a lack of knowledge, negative attitudes and discriminatory practices among health care workers; inaccessible health facilities and information or data collection and analysis on disability, all contribute to health inequities faced by people with disabilities.

Addressing health inequities for people with disabilities helps achieve global health priorities.  Improving the health and wellbeing of populations can be achieved more rapidly through cross-sectoral public health interventions manner.

 Advancing health equity for people with disabilities is a central component in all efforts to protect population in health emergencies. Everyone can benefit when health inequities faced by people with disabilities are addressed. Older people, people with non-communicable diseases, migrants and refugees or other frequently unreached populations or marginalized groups, can benefit from approaches that target barriers to disability inclusion in the health sector. 

Advancing health equity also contribute towards people with disabilities participating more actively in societies-good health and wellbeing can enable every person to build an engaged and meaningful life.

When developing packages of care, it is imperative that policy makers consider services for specific impairments and health conditions that underly disability such as spinal cord injuries or dementia as well as costs for transport and assistance to reach health services. 

People with disabilities and their representative organizations must be engaged in health sector processes. Indicators for disability inclusion must be integrated into the monitoring and evaluation frameworks on national health systems.

People with disabilities must be considered when preventing and responding to health emergencies because they are more likely to be affected, both directly and indirectly. During the Covid 19   pandemic, person with disabilities living in institutions were cut off from the rest of society with reports of residents being overmedicated, sedated or locked up and situations of self-harm also occurring. In the Covid 19 pandemic, there were higher mortality rates among people with intellectual disabilities who were less likely to receive intensive care services.

Promoting healthier populations through clean air and water, road safety, child nutrition and addressing violence against women will only be achieved if public health interventions for the wider population consider the needs, skills and capacities of people with disabilities.

Against health inequities faced by people with disabilities, WHO works to ensure people with disabilities have equitable access to effective health services; are included in health services; are included in health emergencies preparedness and responses; and can access cross-sectoral public health interventions to achieve the highest attainable standard of health. 

Morgen Makombo Sikwila

.MSC Peace and Governance

.BSc Counselling

.Diploma in Environmental Health

.Certificate in Marketing Management