The fund has so far supported more than 4,500 PWDs through Ebeye Yie (EYE) Foundation, a non-governmental organisation that focuses on ensuring proper, quality and inclusive health service delivery to PWDs, especially the deaf.

The project was piloted in three regions — Greater Accra, Central and Ashanti — where medical staff at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, Cape Coast Teaching Hospital and Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital were taken through the use of basic sign language to enable them communicate with members of the deaf communitiy when they seek health care.

Additionally, EYE was also tasked to sensitise the members of the deaf community in the three regions on how to avoid contracting the virus and the need to take the vaccine.

Extension

The Executive Director of Ebeye Yie Foundation, Mr Isaac Ofori, told the Daily Graphic that following the positive feedback from the project, the National COVID-19 Trust Fund had extended the project to all the regions across the country to ensure “no one is left behind”.

He said “over the years, medical personnel have had challenges interacting with members of the deaf community. Communication barriers in health care and the role of public policies has effected the social inclusion of deaf people”.

He said the global crisis of COVID-19 had deepened the pre-existing inequalities in society globally, in addition to highlighting the vulnerability of people with disabilities, including the deaf.

Mr Ofori commended the government, through the COVID-19 Trust Fund, for taking steps aimed at mitigating the difficulties in health care providers communicating with deaf people.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has indicated that COVID-19 has resulted in further disadvantage and increased vulnerability for many persons with disabilities due to barriers in the health and social sectors, including discriminatory attitudes and inaccessible infrastructure.

Mr Ofori said “there exist a bigger problem of health service delivery to PWDs, especially the deaf because of communication barrier, and the government needed to take urgent action to address it”.

He said communication barriers had led majority of PWDs to avoid patronage of health facilities because of the frustration, embarrassment and inability to access quality services.

Concerns

Some members of the deaf community who shared their stories with the Daily Graphic claimed that their plight had been worsened by the pandemic.

The President of the Ghana National Association of the Deaf (GNAD), Mr Matthew Kubachua, said although steps aimed at mitigating the difficulties in communicating to deaf had been made easy in a few hospitals, “they are still insufficient to guarantee protection for the deaf in this pandemic, and full inclusion in health care”.

He said “most deaf people do not go to hospital when they are sick. Why do they have to go? When they go to the hospitals, there are no interpreters. The doctors and nurses do not understand us. If there is no good communication, how can they help us?”

He said as a result of miscommunication, some of their members had died, hence the decision of many deaf people to embrace self-medication.

“When we are sick, we go to the pharmacy or chemist shop and buy some drugs and take them or we resort to herbs,” he said.

He said there had been numerous promises by the health ministry to put sign language interpreters in all health facilities, but such promises were yet to be fulfilled.

On behalf of Central Region Association of the Deaf, the Regional President, Mr Felix Odoi, expressed gratitude to the COVID-19 Trust Fund and EYE for creating awareness about the pandemic, with more than 1,000 deaf in 22 districts in the region benefiting from the project.

He, however, called for policies that would ensure social inclusion, supported by law, and the linguistic accessibility of deaf people to generate broad and concrete actions “so that deaf people can enjoy their rights as citizens”.