Entry Instance

HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept

{
    "id": 1407846,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1407846/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 425,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Crystal Asige",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "That as you can imagine, require a very different health service delivery approach along side other specially trained medical workers who understand the needs of women and girls with disabilities. This is in addition to ensuring well trained medical workers in the care of women and girls with disabilities. I also wish to see the Sponsor add to the Bill, a strict requirement that, these maternity health facilities provide mobility aids and assistive devices. These includes but are not limited to - walking sticks, crutches, walking frames, wheelchairs, hearing aids, screen readers, talking devices and healthcare literature in accessible formats so that, all women and girls with disabilities who are using these services understand and be assisted by them. Madam Temporary Speaker, in addition, these facilities across the board must reduce barriers to adequate healthcare by also providing accessible hospital beds as well as disabled toilets, showers and hot baths for women and girls with disabilities, specifically to maintain their dignity. To the sponsor of this Bill, these provisions must be made in black and white and not assumed because we know what happens when you assume. I cannot say it here because it is not parliamentary language, but we know what happens when you assume. I also want the sponsor to think about what happens to these women and girls with disabilities once they are discharged from the labour ward and are sent home with their child, twins, triplets or quadruplets. I want the Bill to provide for trained disability social workers or community health promoters to be making frequent visits to the homes of these women and girls. This is to ensure quality home-based care and needs assessment, especially, in the formative weeks of the children’s lives. It is important to keep supporting these women as the sponsor has said but women and girls with disabilities need specific and nuanced support when they go home with their children. Madam Temporary Speaker, recognizing our extenuating mobility and movement challenges in public service vehicles as a barrier to seek out services physically after being discharged is also another reason why. Creating for the social workers to leave hospitals and visit us directly at home will exponentially improve our response services that could avoid or completely arrest fast deteriorating conditions of the new-borns that we have taken home. Early intervention services are desperately lacking in our country, and we need to have this provision added into the Bill through the sponsor. Section 20(2)(d) provides for priority groups but there is no definition of who these groups are in the interpretation of the Bill. This leaves room for ambiguity as it is open to many interpretations. I therefore request the sponsor to clear this up before the Bill comes back to the Floor for the next Reading, with the express definition provided therein. Section 9 of the marginal notes addresses services for women with special needs specifically, Section 9(1)(d) which addresses at-risk persons. The note should therefore in my view read, “services for women with disabilities and at-risk persons.”"
}