Call To Action: Urgent Need To Implement Disability, Sexual, Reproductive Law

In Lagos State, there are about three million Persons With Disabilities, (PWDs) and these set of people are mostly neglected, excluded and unable to access basic services including education, health, transport, infrastructure, employment amongst others.

Research has shown that marginalization and exclusion of PWDs in Nigeria from basic services such as health is a consequence of three broad factors.

These includes; low awarenes, poor capacity and inadequacy or absence of appropriate legal and policy framework as well as poor funding were identified as key outcomes and implications of the lack of or adequacies in health sector legal and policy framework required for the provision of disability inclusive Sexual and Reproductive Health, (SRH) services in Lagos State.

However, there is poor implementation of relevant provisions in existing health laws and policies particularly the health provisions of the Lagos State Special Peoples Law of 2011 which makes provisions for free and inclusive health services for PWDs.

Similarly, it is established that there are a number of national-level health laws and policies such as the National Health Policy of 2016 which make extensive provisions for inclusion and access of PWDs to SRH services.

The implementation framework of these national-level health laws and policies places responsibilities on the State governments.

In Lagos State, it is observed that there is no processes in place to implement the disability components of these national-level SRH and policies which as a result, has hindered PWDs from benefiting from several SRH programmes and services provided by public health care Institutions.

Speaking at a policy round table discussion organised by Journalist Against AIDS (JAAIDS) and Nigeria Association of the Blind (NAB) in collaboration with Lagos State Office For Disability Affairs, (LASODA), the Director, Monitoring and Evaluation for LASODA, Mr Ogunloye Akintunde Oyewole said “there is a law since 2011 that says, there should be free medical services for PWDs in Lagos State and it has become a right for these people to access health without charge.

But, he said, “most times i had had to call Igando, Lagos Island and Ikorodu general hospitals because PWDs were denied access to free medical services”

Recounting his experience, Oyewole said, “there was a time, I had to turn back after reaching my office to Ikorodu general hospital and when I got there, I noticed that a hearing impaired person has been held for almost five weeks. She was not discharged after delivery because she didn’t have money to pay.

“Another visually impaired was also there for two weeks without been discharged. The hospital were planning to bring her down from the bed to create bed space for other patients. I spoke with the person in charge of welfare. I waited until both the hearing and visually impaired women were discharged.”

He appealed to hospitals to follow what the law says to rendering free medical services to PWDs.

While appealing to the consciences of policy makers to take matters concerning PWDs seriously, stating that ” this program was designed for Permanent Secretaries but what we have here are representatives sent by these Permanent Secretaries with the knowledge that these representatives cannot change the simplest of policies.

“I would have loved a situation where some of the key controllers of Ministries Department and Agencies, (MDAs) are here to listen to what we are saying. Disability law is a State law.

“Government itself need to see PWDs as a priority. PWDs matter should be taken seriously as that road project carried out by the State government.”

Also speaking at the event, representing the Permanent Secretary, Lagos State Health Service Commission, Mrs Runsewe Feluntola said that, in collaboration with the Lagos State Ministry of Health, we have trained some health workers on sign language interpretation, a doctor and a nurse from each facility.

She added that, ” from this meeting, we now know that two days is not sufficient to learn all there is, we hope to do another retraining. I am sure those trained must have left the system by now. We will look at that and see what we can do.”

As regards the Rams and making the infrastructure more accessible for clients, Feluntola added that we will take that back to the office and make sure that PWDs are more inclusive in our health care services.

She stated, “we also need to get the kind of services that should be rendered. If we can get a policy statement from LASODA, that would help and we can present that to the Ministry of Health and find a way to work out something in the health facilities.

“The Medical Directors will be carried along because they are the first point of call at the facility level since they are the ones working with the doctors as well relate some of these messages to the health workers. So that when next we meet, we would know how far we have gone.”

Lending her voice, the Program Coordinator, National Association for the Blind, (NAB), Ejiro Okotie, said as part of the activities of NAB, we have selected three hospitals as part of our pilot project to engage with health care facilities.

She said, “these three hospitals are namely; Randle, Ikorodu and Badagry general hospitals because they represent the three senatorial district of Lagos State. We had a one-day sensitization talk with the health workers.

“The findings we got as we engaged with these hospitals are that; a lot of people do not know the Special Peoples Law of Lagos State. We also found out that the top level management staff are knowledgeable about the disability law while at the lower level, the people that engage with PWDs on a daily basis, a lot of them are not aware of the law.

“A lot of them had never had a disability training, that alone is a challenge. With little or no knowledge of how to engage with the persons with disabilities makes their work very difficult.”

Okotie pointed that the impression about PWDs should be changed, explaining that, “people have the impression that PWDs are aggressive and it comes with the preconceived idea from a PWD that he will be treated badly. They are already in that attitude, expecting to be neglected, discriminated.”

She noted that there is huge shortage of personnel in the facilities with a lot of patients to attend to, hence health workers may not have adequate time for patient with disability as much as they would want to.