Improving Healthcare for Disabled Women

Reaching disabled women and girls in health systems is crucial because our lives depend on it.

I will never forget the time I asked the CEO of a prominent international development organization about why they weren’t reaching disabled women in their new health programs in Latin America, Africa and Asia. The answer almost made me fall out of my own wheelchair: “We don’t even have enough health resources for ‘normal people’, let alone disabled women.”

Although the CEO’s response was antiquated, unfortunately women and girls with disabilities around the world continue to be denied health information and services today. The emotional and physical pain of being excluded and discriminated against is visceral. It affects our bodies, minds and souls.

Even when health organizations do address disability, it is too often through a deficit-based lens focused on cure or prevention. There are not sufficient resources dedicated to ensuring that those with permanent disabilities can access the same health services as people without disabilities. Prevention and rehabilitation solutions can and must work in tandem with rights-based solutions. This would improve healthcare not only for disabled women, but for all women and for families everywhere.

Steps for Engaging Disabled Women in Health

Disabled women must be engaged in the planning, implementation and evaluation of health systems, and there is absolutely no reason why they cannot be.

Making health systems accessible works best as a systematic, intentional process, not an “add on”.

To achieve this, healthcare leaders and practitioners need:

1. Technical assistance to make their spaces physically accessible, their materials accessible, and their staff informed and well-trained.
2. Information on how to include disabled women in topics ranging from combating violence against women to reproductive health to parenting to basic health care.
3. Dedicated funds in all budgets for disability-related accommodations, for example, to make spaces physically accessible (e.g. ramps and accessible restrooms), communication access (e.g. sign language interpreting, braille and other formats), and more.

I truly believe that the majority of leaders administering healthcare systems throughout the world want to include disabled women and girls – if they only knew how.

Why am I so confident? Because we have seen the changes that happen when leaders leverage the expertise of disabled women advisors. At MIUSA, we know how to train health workers and policy makers, and we have a network of disabled women leaders with expertise in making health accessible to other disabled women.

Disabled Women Leaders Leading the Way for Health

Since 1997, disabled women with a variety of disabilities have participated in MIUSA’s women’s leadership programs, which address mental and physical health throughout the three-week intensive training.

In a recent survey, we heard from 49 alumni of MIUSA’s signature Women’s Institute on Leadership and Disability (WILD), about how WILD had impacted their ability to promote disabled women’s physical and mental health.

Women with disabilities from 33 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe shared ways in which WILD had changed not only their lives but also the lives of disabled women in their home countries and communities:

• A woman who once ignored her body now swims daily because she is proud of who she is and prioritizes self-care to sustain and energize her advocacy for changes in her country’s healthcare system. (WILD Alumna from Ethiopia who has a physical disability)
• A woman who believed that she could never be a parent, is now the mother of a nine-year-old girl, defying all of the stereotypes upheld by her country and culture. (WILD Alumna from Myanmar who has Cerebral Palsy)
• A blind woman who once felt isolated and stigmatized in a rural area of her country started a self-help and self-care group for other disabled women, offering support for mental health and to access healthcare services. (WILD Alumna from Sri Lanka who is blind)
• Another alum successfully advocated for sign language interpreters in hospitals and breast cancer screening for Deaf women. (WILD Alumna from the Philippines who is Deaf)
• For the first time, a disabled woman realized she has the right to see a gynecologist and request the services she needs. (WILD Alumna from Jordan with a physical disability)

Many alumni reported outcomes from trainings they led in their communities, with support from MIUSA. For example:

“[We] have provided health information to women with disabilities, especially to women in rural areas who find it more difficult to receive this information. I was greatly impacted by [what I learned at WILD about] how much mental health we women achieve by exercising. I have seen how the mood of the women of my community has changed since our empowerment activities: inclusive dance, swimming, self-defense, among others.”

-WILD Alumna from Costa Rica who is a wheelchair rider

Changing National Health Systems to Reach Disabled Women

Changing national policy is needed alongside working at the individual and community level. Disabled women themselves must be involved in writing legislation, and leading the interventions that make change possible.

WILD alumni offer invaluable resources to those in power, for making the changes necessary to ensure effective, equitable health systems.

Many of our disabled women alumni are leading efforts toward ensuring that all health policy addresses the needs of women with disabilities, including health services vital to all women, or disability-specific health needs such as for personal assistant services, assistive devices, etc.

In our recent survey of disabled women alumni, nearly half reported organizing advocacy initiatives related to the health rights of women and girls with disabilities. For example:

“I collaborated with local health centers to implement physical accessibility features like ramps, signage, and disability-sensitive waiting areas and advocated for policy changes to include disability sensitivity training for healthcare providers. I also worked with government and NGOs to introduce mobile clinics that serve women with disabilities in rural areas.”

-WILD Alumna from the Philippines who is blind

From Relationships to Partnerships

Few things are more important for driving change in healthcare than building relationships. Sixty percent of our WILD alumni reported that the WILD program had equipped them to form new partnerships with professionals in the healthcare field:

“[Our organization] has worked to improve the mental and physical health of Deaf women in Mongolia by collaborating with doctors and health professionals to address their needs. Our programs have included reproductive health screenings and accessibility examinations tailored to Deaf women. To date, we have reached over 300 Deaf women in Mongolia, empowering them with better access to health services and information.”

-WILD Alumna from Mongolia who is Deaf

“I have engaged mental health practitioners in initiatives to explore how practices in the mental health field can unintentionally discriminate against women with disabilities and discussions about how they can adopt more inclusive approaches.”

-WILD Alumna from Turkey who is a wheelchair rider

Together, We Can Do This: Call to Action

MIUSA has the expertise needed to make change toward health for women and girls with disabilities. We bring a disability-positive approach to health in which we celebrate disability community and value the lived experience of disabled people. We have information, training experience, and an international network of disabled women leaders prepared to impact health systems and their ability to reach disabled women globally.

Our network of disabled women activists, WILD graduates, bring a “Loud, Proud and Passionate(R)” approach, guided by their own sense of power, strength, and agency to improve their own lives, and the lives of other disabled women. These WILD women challenge and improve healthcare systems so that all disabled women and girls – more than 500 million women and girls with disabilities in the world – have the best healthcare possible.

We are asking champions of health to join us. MIUSA is ready to provide you with technical assistance, consultancy, and information, and we know that many of you reading this are ready to make the change! We can also work with those organizations who are already practicing inclusive strategies to amplify their work.

There is not even one more minute to waste. We are ready. Our WILD network of women is ready. We can do this.

Join us.