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Bridging the Healthcare Gap for People With Disabilities

People with disabilities face multiple barriers when accessing healthcare, including communication barriers. This is a challenge because effective communication between healthcare professionals and their patients is critical to providing high-quality healthcare, writes Sonia Biose and Sunday Oko for Nigeria Health Watch.

In Nigeria, 7% of all household members over the age of five experience some level of difficulty in at least one functional domain, including seeing, hearing, communication, cognition, walking, or self-care. Meanwhile, 9.5 million Nigerians are deaf or hard-of-hearing and they may communicate using sign language or lip-reading. At the same time, those who are blind or visually impaired may depend on Braille, assistive technology, or human support for communication.

Unfortunately, these resources are often not available in health facilities, making accessing quality healthcare harder and perpetuating health inequality, write Biose and Oko.

InFocus

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(file photo).

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