Rehabilitation of 5 million disabled persons: Pakistan has only 30-35 trained doctors: experts

In a country where around five million persons are living with permanent disabilities including 2.18 disabled children, there are only 30 to 35 trained and qualified physiatrists (medical doctors who specialize in physical medicine, rehabilitation, and pain medicine) and most of them are working for the army while only five or less are available for the civilians in entire Pakistan.
"Pakistan is perhaps the only country in the world where the gap between trained physiatrists, and disabled population is as huge. There is only one physiatrist for around one million disabled persons. Unfortunately, majority of our disabled population is comprised of children, who never get a chance to be an active member of the society due to their physical or mental disabilities," Dr Nabila Soomro, President of Pakistan Society of Neuro-Rehabilitation told a press conference in Karachi on Thursday.
She said in this gruesome scenario where most of the disabled persons, specially children neither had facilities for rehabilitation nor the trained and qualified experts to help in living a normal life, Pakistan Society of Neuro-Rehabilitation is holding its 2nd two-day Neuro Rehabilitation Conference at Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS) on January 09-10, 2016.
International experts from the United States, United Kingdom, United Arab Emirates and some other countries as well as Pakistani experts in neurological disorders and neuro-rehabilitation would discuss the important aspects of rehabilitation of disabled persons and highlight the need for having rehabilitation centers in the country during the conference, she added.
Professor Dr Muhammad Wasey, President Society of Neurology and Dr Abdul Malik, President Pakistan Stroke Society, were also president on the occasion and highlighted the need and importance of neuro-rehabilitation in Pakistan. Pakistan has one of the largest disabled population in the world with an alarmingly large number of 2.18 million physically or mentally handicapped children, who are 43 percent of the total disabled population of the country but unfortunately, there are neither adequate number of qualified physicians nor the centers for their rehabilitation to make them active members of the society, who could lead their lives on their own, Professor Wasey said.
As many as 1.4 million children with physical or mental disabilities are of school going age in Pakistan but unfortunately, they have no access to education or rehabilitation despite the fact that Pakistan's legislature has passed a law for right to free and compulsory education for each and every child in the country, he added.
The eminent neurologist said a large number of Pakistani population was becoming disabled due to neurological, mental and physical disorders as well as due to accidents, incidents of terrorism and other reasons while number of children among the permanently-disabled persons was also on the rise as compared to rest of the world, where number of children with disabilities was not more than 10 percent of the all disabled persons.
Unfortunately, Dr Wasey deplored, centers for rehabilitation of disabled persons including children, were almost non-existent in Pakistan and due to that, a large number of people with disabilities, who could be treated and become active members of the society, had become a burden on their families and the society for their entire lives.
The panel of neurologists deplored that centers for Neuro-rehabilitation, where patients with neurological disorders like stroke and other ailments could be treated and made active citizens of the society, were also non-existent and patients with even minor disabilities were compelled to live as physically or mentally handicapped persons for their entire lives.
In this scenario, the 2nd two-day Neuro-rehabilitation conference being held in Karachi on January 09-10, 2016 at the Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS), which would be inaugurated by Sindh Health Minister Jam Mehtab Hussain Dahar on Saturday afternoon, they informed.
Speakers said the conference on neuro-rehabilitation would be another step towards raising awareness on this important aspect of health in Pakistan and added that beside scientific sessions for doctors and physicians, the conference would also comprise of hands-on training workshops on the rehabilitation of patients with disabilities due to neurological disorders.-PR