Persons with Disability call for establishment of centre

Persons with Disability (PwDs) in the Wa East District have appealed to the Government and non-governmental organisations to establish a rehabilitation centre to train the disabled in the area.

Mr Abass Yusif, a spokesperson for the PwDs, said because of Onchocerciasis in the past, a good number of the population in the Sissala Passala area were either blind or partially blind and needed assistance to improve their lives.

Mr Yusif, who said he wanted to venture into vegetable production in the dry season using water in the Kulun River, added that because there were no training facilities in the area, many of the disabled were in extreme poverty and “wasting away”.

He said the establishment of a rehabilitation centre would help train PwDs in dressmaking, metal works and designing among other things to make them self-employed and enhance their living standards.

Mr Yusif said the area was endowed with arable land, and disabled persons could be mobilised into groups to undertake dry season gardening to produce vegetables and other crops to sell to gain some income.

He appealed to the Ministry of Food and Agriculture to provide silos for farmers in the area to store their foodstuffs until such a time prices were good for them to sell.

He said because of the lack of silos, businessmen and women also took advantage to buy foodstuff from the farmers at cheaper prices which made them gain little for their hard work thereby discouraging them from expanding their farms.

On health, Mr Yusif said the Wa East District had no district hospital and the people, predominantly farmers, had to depend on Community-based Health and Planning Services (CHPS) compounds to cater for their health needs.

He said because of the long distance and the deplorable nature of the roads, many patients, especially women in labour, who were brought to the clinic from the hinterland on donkey carts, motorbikes and bicycles were in critical conditions with some losing their lives.

Mr Yusif appealed to the government to give due attention to rural districts while providing some communities with polyclinics taking into considering their geographical locations.