Certificates for disabled persons falling under the category of ‘obvious’ disability will henceforth be issued right from the level of the Primary Health Centre, representatives of the community were told on Wednesday.
The announcement was made at a joint meeting of the officials of the Health and Welfare of the Differently Abled Departments and leaders of Tamil Nadu Association for the Rights of All types of Differently Abled and Caregivers (TARATDAC), held in Chennai on Tuesday. Health Secretary J.Radhakrishnan said all efforts would be taken to implement the GO allowing for MBBS practitioners in the government service to issue certificates.
Training programmes for certification of disability will be organized to ensure that no doctor turns away a disabled person with the required qualifications coming in for a certificate.
It was also decided at the meeting that a review will be conducted once in three months to give the members of the community an opportunity to vent their grievances. This would help officials to redress any unresolved issues immediately, they said.
“We welcome this approach. The issue of providing certificates has been going on for a long while, and we appreciate the officials for finding a solution,” said S.Namburajan, State secretary, TARATDAC.
The move to hold periodic meetings was also welcome, he said and hoped that the promises would be kept.
At the meeting, representatives of the disability sector also brought up other issues such as implementation of the CM’s Health Insurance Scheme for the disabled (without income criteria), problems of disabled students pursuing a medical course and providing medicines to the disabled at the health centres, he added.
The Hindu had highlighted in these columns on March 14, the woes of the disabled in securing certificates, under the head “ >Running from pillar to post to get disability certified .”
