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Care For Disabled Children: Who’s Responsibility? By Jennifer Ozumba
There are always challenges for any family who have a disabled child. Poor families in rural areas can hardly afford medical treatment for common conditions such as malaria, yet alone any specialist advice or therapeutic care to improve the quality of life for a disabled child!
How sad it is that a country does not have equality of care! The rich pay for the limited health services there are in Nigeria or go abroad. The poor suffer atrociously, to the point everyday people are dying unnecessarily! Sadly the Government, with access to the wealth of oil resources, provide sparing health services for those in need. Whilst NGO’s and Churches put their heart and soul into helping with the limited funds they have. But why is the Government not doing its job of caring for the disabled?
For 2 and a half years I worked as a volunteer at Amaudo Itumbauzo in Abia State. It is an NGO with Methodist Church Nigeria providing therapeutic care for mentally ill destitutes. It provides outreach services through its community psychiatric clinics for those with a mental illness in Abia, Imo and Ebonyi States. I worked directly with Amaudo’s Project Comfort; a programme concerned with children who have a learning or physical disability. The project visits homes to provide families with advice, support and therapeutic activities to help their children to become more independent and integrated as part of community life.
Whilst working with Amaudo, there were times I felt extremely frustrated by the lack of interest and assistance shown to our work by Government. Amaudo would often approach the State Ministries of Health and Social Welfare to ask for assistance; yet so often the answer was, ‘there’s no money!’ On several occasions appeals were made to Social Welfare, in situations of desperation, with children’s lives being at risk. In these cases our project had done everything they could and further assistance was necessary to save their lives. It soon became apparent that Social Welfare had their hands tied, as there was little they could do without the sufficient funds or existing adequate services to tap into. In one case, some money was promised by a Local Government yet it never came in time and the child sadly died. This poor child, a child of God, one potential leader of the great nation of Nigeria! What had he done to deserve being put in the grave before he could walk or see his teenage years? And what had he done to be denied the love and care of his family? What had he done to be considered so insignificant to a country?
This is not the only child who died of neglect whilst I was with the project…..and we were only working in ONE Local Government. I am aware of at least 5 children with a disability who died, yet I know this number is an underestimation of the true figures and that there are many more children hidden away! Therefore by the time we consider how many children die in each LGA in one year (5), multiply it by the number of LGA's across the Abia State (17) which comes to a total of 85 then times it by the number of States in the Country (36). The total painfully comes to 3060, equating to lives lost every year, due to lack of care of a country! Should there not at least be a memorial statue in the country for ‘the children who died of neglect’, so they do not become a forgotten group! A monument to whip the conscience of this country and its leaders out of a brutal inertia, that is insensitive to the needs of its disabled and destitute children. The Constitution of Nigeria states that all citizens have a right to life. I do not believe there is an exception for the ‘disabled child’! If Government has failed to care, families of disabled children have out of ignorance and superstitions done worse.
Sadly out or desperation and embarrassment families will lock up their disabled children in a back room with little or no care. Parents will also chain their children or take them to a traditional healer or prayer house and allow them to be starved and beaten in a torturous manner, with the belief they are helping their children! Many Christian groups do not help the situation with their over indulgence in the belief of Satan, demons and spirits. The exemplary love Jesus Christ showed to the disabled while on earth is ignored for an incessant “spiritual warfare” that dehuman and brutalizes, rather than uplifts. Nigerians have a duty to care. If we are better carers then our roads would not be crowded with people who become excluded from society and labeled as ‘disabled’, and have no choice than to also be ’beggars!’ Every Nigerian is likely to know a person who is disabled; therefore every citizen has the opportunity to show love, care and assistance.
Every family should show disabled relatives love and patience and treat them quite simply as a ‘human being’! There are many causes of disability including genetical and environmental factors. Therefore beating or starving a person which is perceived to have an evil spirit in them is unfruitful and a form of abuse on the person. Such treatment will only make the person’s behaviour worse. In contrast, families will be surprised at the difference, when they treat their relatives who have a disability with that respect, patience and give them opportunities to participate in family and community life.
In the case where families do not provide such care. Then it is the responsibility of the extended family and community to assist. In addition the government has its own duty to provide services and care. The implementation of awareness campaigns and training programmes to sensitise and inform people on how to care for the disabled is necessary. The most cost effective and successful care is community based, when the support services are in place, yet it is also essential that sustainable care homes are set up for the disabled who have extreme cases of need. Increased training, structuring and empowering the financial abilities of government and welfare organizations would lead to an ‘Improved Social Welfare System’. These simple developments would go along way to classifying and measuring Nigeria’s success and progress as being a country who truly, ‘care for its people’, in word and in action! |