By.Admin
Health experts and activists are advising government to invest in special needs health and education systems so as to inclusively support needy people even during emergency times like these.
Addressing a joint press conference in Kampala, Sam Watasa from Uganda consumers protection association and Dr. Micheal Ogwal from cure children’s clinic reveal that during the covid19 lockdown very many health impaired Ugandans mostly those with spina bifida and hydrocephalous failed to access medical treatment which left many developing serious health complications with others losing lives.
The experts state that this happened because it was very hard for such people to move to health centers to seek services.
However, the executive director of spina bifida and hydrocephalous association Uganda, Ruth Nalugya confirms that during the lockdown, they lost eight members due to hardships to access medical facilities which call for more investment in special needs health systems coupled with carrying out a national census to know how many Ugandans are living with this health complication.
Government has always struggled to provide scholastic material for special needs education and it came to covid19 lockdown the situation was made worse as special needs learners among them are learners with spina bifida and hydrocephalus who have not fully benefited from the new learning system under the seven months lockdown.
This can be witnessed with the able bodied learners not able to access learning material from government to support their learning and now disabled learners are facing very hard time a thing slated to cripple and slow down their learning pase. This according to activists.
But Dr. Pamela Nizeyimana, the special needs education officer in the ministry of education and sports maintains that the government has considered learners with special needs but asks parents and guardians to take it upon themselves to support these special learners for them to cope up with the syllabus.
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