Key considerations for preparedness for inclusive health services in emergencies:
- Consult with persons from at-risk groups about potential barriers they may experience in seeking health services during a disaster, and plan to address these barriers for delivering inclusive health services during an emergency.
- Include disaggregated data by age, gender and type of disability in Health Management Information System.
- Identify and ensure that existing mental health and psychosocial services, including at the community level, are inclusive of and accessible to people with disabilities, older people and their family members and caregivers.
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Train local health workforce (e.g., community health workers, nurses, family doctors) in disability inclusive emergency health services as part of a routine emergency preparedness and response training, or as a component of disability-inclusion training. Health workers can also be briefly oriented and sensitized during an emergency to prioritize disability issues and needs.
- Facilitate preparedness measures for individuals receiving treatment for non-communicable diseases before an emergency, including older people and people with disabilities, to ensure continued treatment in the event of disrupted supplies.
- Plan for providing appropriate food for people with disabilities, older people, children, pregnant women and lactating mothers in an emergency. Modifications may be required for people with feeding or swallowing difficulties. For example, a person with swallowing difficulties may need puréed food and/or a straw for drinking.
- Plan to manage malnutrition in people with mobility and feeding difficulties, (e.g., by providing access to supplementary feeding sites) and ensure that rations are accessible to at-risk groups (e.g., by creating separate queues).
- Integrate basic mental health care services in primary- and general health care, including developing healthcare provider capacities in identification and management of common mental health conditions.
- Prepare information about available health services, existing disability programmes, services and support groups, before, during and after an emergency, in accessible formats and ensure persons from at-risk groups are aware of this information.
Consider the following when conducting health facility site assessments:
- Do people with disabilities, older people and other at-risk groups have access to mainstream and specialized health services?
- Are reasonable accommodations in place to ensure access to health services and facilities to people with disabilities, including children and older people with disabilities?
- Are medications for chronic health conditions, equipment such as catheters and basic hygiene kits for people who are incontinent, and appropriate assistive devices such as wheelchairs and crutches, available?
- Are injury care and acute rehabilitation services provided at primary care level for preventing long-term disability?
- Are accessible forms of transport available to take people with disabilities to referral centres?