The Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research is going to start a research project to study the problems faced by disabled women patients seeking treatment at the tertiary care institute. The aim of this project is to provide better health care amenities to disabled women and is first of its kind study to be conducted in India.
The project will be jointly pursued by the Gynecology and Public Health department. With the aim of improving health care facility in both public and private sector hospitals, around 300 women with different kind of disabilities will be personally interviewed by the experts to ascertain the problems faced by them.
A team comprising of Dr Amarjeet Singh from the School of Public Health, Dr Vanita Suri, Dr Ravneeta, Dr Ruchi Sharma and Dr Sukhpal of the Gynecology department will take part in the project.
In an overarching patriarchal setup, like India, women with disability are marginalized and subjected to worst treatment burgeoned by their status as women, a person with disability and worst if stuck in poverty. Women with disability are meted with sheer neglect while seeking health-care facility, say experts from PGI.
Dr Amarjeet Singh, Professor of Community Medicine at the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research said, “Women with disability are the worst affected group in the Indian society. They are deprived of basic rights and the problem aggravates with the social stigma attached to their cause of disability and poverty.”
The project will be an interactive session based study which will focus on the problems faced by disabled women while seeking treatment in PGI. During the course of the project, emphasis will be laid to know about the women health related issues and sexually transmitted diseases in the disabled women population.
The data collected during the course of the project will be analyzed by the team of experts to come up with innovative and disabled women friendly model to deal with the problems at a better level and help disable women to interact better with the doctors, so that they can be given better treatment. The work to formulate this model will commence from next week.
Dr Ruchi Sharma said, “During the course of the project if any disabled women face problem while communicating with a medical staff or doctor in PGI, they can visit the room number 2060 located in the second floor of the New OPD block. Even opinions are invited from female patients in the age group of 14-45, and they may visit this room to give their suggestions.”