Post Office boss calls for national action on disabilities

Mrs Francisca Quarshie, Post Manageress of Accra North Post office has expressed disgust over apparent neglect and pervasive discrimination persons with disabilities (PWDs) are silently enduring, and called for a national action on the matter.

It is regrettable the nation has left behind the blind, deaf, physically challenged, albinos and others in national planning and development efforts, she said.

Mrs Quarshie told Ghana News Agency in an interview that PWDs are going through a painful life of not being able to access most public and private buildings, cross roads due open gutters or lack of buttons on traffic lights to signal motorists to stop.

She noted that lack of sign language interpreters in Ghana’s health facilities poses serious danger to the health needs of the deaf due to inability of medical doctors and nurses to interpret or understand their predicaments.

The roads are dangerous to those on wheel chairs, clutches and white canes particularly at the traffic joints where motorist seem to have no respect for them (PWDs), she added.

She noted that public policies do not often take care of the pressing needs of PWDs, saying, “how many of the community day senior high schools are allocated to disabled persons, the deaf or the blind, there is only one senior high school for them”.

Mrs Quarshie observed that the churches, government, schools, individuals and organisations are guilty of discriminating against PWDs and called for a national action that would seek to respect their fundamental rights and the need for their integration in the society.