Disability Care Services

Swiss Emmaus India supported hospitals and Mobile Service Delivery Teams providing quality services on Prevention of Impairments and Disabilities (POID) to all the needy patients.

Swiss Emmaus India supported NGOs intensified POID services and prepared a Special Action Plan in order to prevent, limit and correct deformities at field level by adopting various simple techniques, aids and appliances. The patients with various complications are being referred to the nearest hospitals for specialized care/treatment. The other main services under disability programme are supply of Micro Cellular Rubber (MCR) protective footwear for patients having ulcers and insensitive feet, supply of self care / ulcer care kits and reconstructive surgery etc..

The POD services rendered during the year 2004 are given in the following table.

SELF CARE TRAINING

For successful disability prevention the self care training and monitoring are two important components in POD programme. Swiss Emmaus India intensified self-care training to the individuals, groups of patients and their family members. It is observed that many patients can solve some of their problems on their own by regular practice of selfcare skills.

It is also known fact that certain patients develop new complications if they do not practice self-care properly. In many occasions the trained Physio-technicians / Health worker used to identify and help the patients to correct their wrong practices. It is gratifying to note that 4105 disability patients were evaluated on the result of self-care education in different regions of Swiss Emmaus India.

The following table reveals the importance of self-care education. It is encouraging to note that about 97.8% of the disability patients remain static or improved and only 2.2% of the patients developed either new disabilities or worsening of existing disabilities where the attention of monitoring by health worker is needed to help the patients.

Training on Swift Disability Assessment

As per the available records and statistics there are 6,558 disability patients existing in 17 Swiss Emmaus India supported projects. It was pointed out that the number of disability patients reported by the projects in general is on the lower side. Hence it was emphasized the need of special campaign to carryout quality assessment on disability as a fast pace, so that the reliable picture of disability will be available from the projects / PHCs / Districts. Keeping this fact in view, Swiss Emmaus India planned to organize SWIFT Disability Assessment Training for Physiotechnicians, Non Medical Supervisors and Para Medical Staff who are responsible for POID activities in the projects.

During the year 4 Swift Disability Training Programmes were conducted covering all the regions and projects of Swiss Emmaus India. The main object of this training programme is to speed up the disability assessment in a systematic way.

DISABILITY PREVENTION AND EDUCATION IN LEPROSY (DISPEL)

The systematic implementation of the District level Field based DISPEL Programme is being carried out as per plan of action by the Mobile Action Teams with the co-operation of District Leprosy Officer (DLO), Medical Officers and General Health staff of Primary Health Centres. All the registered disability patients are taken care in the district under DISPEL programme.

The main objectives of this Programme are:

• To provide POID services to all the needy patients at Service Delivery Points
  (SDPs) established in every primary health center in the programme area.
  
  

• To provide Protective Footwear (MCR Footwear) to all the needy patients.
  
  

• To provide self care kits for all the ulcer patients.
  
  

• To refer the eligible patients for surgical correction
  
  

• To teach the patients on SELF CARE, to practice Disability Prevention methods at
  their houses with the help of their family members.

The performance of the DISPEL programme during the year 2004 in different districts are
given in below.

DISPEL ACTIVITIES - 2004