People with disabilities lack access to sexual and reproductive health

File photo of People with Disabilities

Kathmandu / February 16: The Sexual and Reproductive Health Research Report released on Monday has revealed that the people with disabilities lack easy access to sexual and reproductive health services due to many reasons.

The research conducted in six different districts with support from the Sunaulo Parivar Nepal/ Marie Stopes International and Australian Aid also shows that the health workers and health institutions in the country are still not friendly to the people living with disabilities.

The research was conducted in two years among 293 respondents of Kaski, Siraha, Parsa, Bara, Lalitpur and Morang districts.

In the research, 54 per cent respondents have said that the physical infrastructures of the health institutions were not friendly to the physically-challenged persons while 51 per cent of the respondents said that they were unaware of the safe abortion.

The people with disabilities said that their queries on sexual and reproductive health are not well answered and they are even ill-treated from the health workers, according to the research report.

The total population of the disabled persons in the country has reached as high as 513,000 and nearly 4,000 people have become physically disabled from the Gorkha Earthquake and its subsequent aftershocks. RSS