General News
A tough challenge: Disability Centers in Africa
By Geoffrey Kamadi
Freelance Writer - Kenya
Even though Lucy Njeri knew that her firstborn daughter, who is now14 years old, had a medical condition, she had no clue it was a mental one.
Njeri, a resident of the low-income Dandora Estate on the outskirts of Nairobi, thought that her daughter, Anne Waithira, suffered from a form of pneumonia, and so did the physician at a back-alley clinic.
"She began falling down by herself without being touched. I thought that Waithira was suffering from a kind of pneumonia because the clinic had diagnosed her condition as that," Njeri recounted to IslamOnline.net (IOL).
Waithira continued to receive treatment for pneumonia till she was seven.
"When the physician saw that her condition did not improve, he decided that my daughter suffered from something else," recalls Njeri.
Acting on the physician's advice, Njeri sought a second medical opinion at the Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH), one of the largest referral hospitals in East Africa, based in Kenya. It was at KNH that Waithira was diagnosed with epilepsy.
An Uphill Struggle for Parents
Just like most of other parents of children living with disabilities, Njeri's life is struggling. Working as a washerwoman, she does not have a steady income.Her child's condition has confined her movements so much that she hardly has time to look for a decent work. This means that she can ill afford the prohibitive cost of epilepsy drugs.
She now seeks assistance from the Kenya Society for the Mentally Handicapped (KSMH) for her daughter's drug needs.
Hilna Pankaj Shah, an educational psychologist and the deputy chief executive officer at the society, told IOL that the facility relies almost exclusively on donations.
However, this funding has been dwindling over the years, making it difficult to provide the required and adequate care for people living with mental disabilities. KSMH, which has representatives stationed in various parts of the country, is the only facility of its kind in the entire Republic.
"Disability organizations in Kenya are mainly donor-driven. Despite the fact that they receive some form of government funding, this assistance is usually less than adequate," Shah explained to IOL.
She adds that donations can only go so far to provide care for that segment of the population, living with mental disabilities in the country. There are 3.5 million Kenyans living with mental disabilities.
"Donor funding can last for only six months. This is not enough to run the day-to-day operations at the facility," says Shah.
A cursory glance round the facility does well to drive this point home. Despite the fact that a door label on one door conveniently proclaims "Physiotherapist" and on another door "Neurologist," these doors open into empty rooms.
More still, a brand-new electroencephalogram (EEG) machine acquired through donations is available yet unused and left idle in another room. The room has since become a receptacle for laundry. Sometimes, explains Shah, neurologists use it to check damage on parts of the brain.
KSMH opened its doors in 1971, as an organization for parents whose children live with disabilities. Since then, the organization has been struggling to keep staff and to adequately cater for the needs of people living with mental disabilities.
One of the ways in which KSMH is trying to help, explains Shah, is to look for funds through a program known as Carers Program.
"We want to raise funds to help parents [of children living with mental disabilities] hire a caregiver so that they can go out to look for a job and better look after their children," Shah explains the program initiative.
This initiative was necessary according to Shah, because parents either stayed at home to look after their children, or were forced to lock up their children just so they can go look for a work.
"Tablets can cost up to KES 500 (USD 7), yet these parents cannot even afford [the] taxi fare to come to this facility," says Shah.
Continent-wide Problem
Tales of underfunding and lack of adequate facilities are very common in the majority of disability centers across the continent.Dennis Mahina is the founder of Lake Victoria Disability Centre (LVDC) in Musoma, Tanzania. He told IOL that disability centers in Tanzania are not sufficient.
"The percentage of people with disabilities in Tanzania is slightly higher than the known world percentage, and the centers handling this population are far too small," Mahina told IOL through an e-mail interview.
He stresses that rehabilitation centers in the country are neither well equipped with facilities, nor do they have qualified personnel. He cites an example in the Mara Region of Tanzania.
With a surging population of 1.6 million inhabitants and expanding, the Region has known only two physiotherapists in its entire history. These physiotherapists have been working for less than six months since their deployment in the area.
"The same region has only one orthopedic technician and one occupational therapist, serving the whole region," reiterates Mahina.
One frustrating element in providing help to people with disabilities across Africa is what Mahina terms as "little" vision if any exists at all in the manner in which health and planning policies are drafted.
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