Disabled Pregnant Women in Upper East Forced to Deliver By Surgery

It has emerged that health officials in the Upper East Region of Ghana seemed to have deliberately adopted a perceived “unkind strategy” by always resorting very quickly to surgery procedures to be performed on disabled pregnant women who visit the hospital to be delivered of their babies.         

           

At an accountability fora organized by RISE-Ghana in the Bolgatanga and Bawku Municipalities for Persons With Disabilities (PWDs) recently, Madam Josephine Koumkugri, Bolgatanga Municipal Chairperson of the Ghana Federation for the Disabled, called on the Ghana Health Service to ensure that its staff stopped violating the rights of pregnant women with disabilities.

 According to her, health officials at the various hospitals often assumed that PWDs could not deliver on their own whenever they were brought to their facilities in labour, and thereby forced them to undergo operation, citing herself as an example.

Madam Gladys Waadi, the Upper East Regional Women’s President of the Ghana Blind Union, also urged health workers to stop the attitude of mocking and calling disabled pregnant women derogatory names.  

She remarked, “It is common to hear nurses and other health workers say, you blind or cripple woman too, you are pregnant.” Don’t they know that we have rights to found a family? She queried, stressing that that attitude must stop. 

The Rural Initiatives for Self Empowerment (RISE-Ghana) fora in the Bolgatanga and Bawku Municipalities were part of the implementation of the German Centre for International Cooperation (GIZ) and the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) Civil Society Support Program (CSSP) dubbed: “Creating an enabling environment and strengthening organizations of People with disability to engage power.” 

The overall goal of the project was to strengthen the capacities of organizations of PWD to enable them demand transparency, accountability and responsiveness from duty-bearers and advocate for the implementation of the PWD Act.

Both Madam Gladys and Madam Joseph expressed gratitude to RISE-Ghana, GIZ and CDD-Ghana for the platform created for PWDs to voice their concerns and frustrations and hoped that the media would also help monitor and address them by way of constant reportage.

The two women urged all duty bearers to treat PWDs with dignity, adopt an inclusive approach towards development and put necessary measures in place to make their office premises accessible as spelt out under the PWD Act, (Act, 715 of 2006) of the 1992 Constitution. 

Awal Ahmed, Project Manager, RISE-Ghana

Awal Ahmed, Project Manager of RISE-Ghana said, the purpose of the engagement meetings in the two municipalities was to provide a platform and voice for PWDs to interact and demand accountability from duty bearers such as the Ghana Education Service, Ghana Health Service, Members of Parliament, Ministries, Departments and Agencies as well as Private Institutions on the progress they had made or the commitment they had towards implementing the provisions of the PWD Act, the 3 percent District Assembly Common Fund disbursement guidelines and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of PWDs.

As part of the implementation of the project, he noted that an audit of public office buildings, schools and sporting facilities had been conducted in the two municipalities, with a very sad and disturbing revelation of 95% of buildings classified as being disability unfriendly. 

Whiles commending GIZ and CDD-Ghana for supporting the project, Mr. Awal also appealed to the media to take the fight of inclusive development further, especially in this electioneering year.

Participants tasked the Electoral Commission to ensure that the upcoming December 2012 election was made disability friendly so that PWDs could have a real vote.

The Ghana Highways Authority and Department of Urban Roads were also tasked to ensure that the roads were disability friendly by installing alert sounds on traffic signals to aid the blind. These request, according to the participants were a sound bases for promoting inclusion and disability rights.  

Meanwhile, the monthly meetings by RISE-Ghana has resulted in the timely release of the 3 percent District Assembly Common Fund to PWDs in for instance, the Bawku Municipality and created a forum for PWDs in the Bolgatanga Municipality and Talensi-Nabdam District to demand accountability on the administration of the Fund.