Kwaku Agyeman-Manu, Health Minister
The Parent Association for Children with Intellectual Disabilities (PACID-Ghana), in collaboration with New Horizon Special School, has held a day workshop to sensitise parents and the media on the various forms of intellectual disabilities and called on government to support such children.
The workshop hosted a paediatric neurologist and a clinical psychologist, parents with children with intellectual disabilities and the media to talk about how best the three groups can collaborate to promote the rights of children with intellectual disabilities and advocate policies and programmes that will serve their interest.
Welcoming the participants to the workshop, Salome Francois, founder of PACID, explained that the association was formed as a result of the desperate cry for help by parents of children with intellectual disabilities.
“PACID believes that every child, handicapped or not, has the right to develop to the limits of his capabilities… Gone are the days when children with intellectual disabilities were called the forgotten ones, the hidden ones and the children nobody knows.
Today, PACID is saying that first of all they are children and secondly that they have a disability and so they need special care and attention,” she said.
Making a presentation about the various forms of intellectual disabilities, Dr Marbell Wilson, a paediatric neurologist, hinted that cerebral palsy which can be caused by sever neonatal jaundice affects the part of the brain that controls the mobility of the child and thereby causes fixation at the muscle joints leading to difficulty in movement and control of the body.
He said the condition can be managed with physiotherapy but for improvement to be seen, the treatment must be consistent.
Nortey Duah, a senior clinical psychologist, called for the need for parents with children with intellectual disabilities to seek early treatment and avoid hiding them as it only hinders their ability to get help.
He said there was the need for the media to champion the issue of more support to children with intellectual disability, adding that with the media support their situation can change for the best.
“I know the power of the media and we need the media to come on board like they have done with the issue of galamsey,” Nortey Duah stated.
By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri