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Health & Medicine, Schemes & Policies
Mahesh

09/04/22 12:51 PM IST

National Health Fest for Divyangjan – We Care

In News 
  • Special Olympics Bharat has launched the “National Health Fest for Divyangjan – We Care”, a national health programme to screen 75,000 persons with intellectual disabilities across 120 cities of India on World Health Day 2022 (April 7).
  • AIM- setting records for conducting the largest health and fitness programme across the country and screening a record number of people with ID across the country in a single day.
Features of programme 
  • Seventy-five thousand medical and sports professionals will be trained to provide high-quality healthcare and training to athletes with ID.
  • Moreover, 750 Special Olympics Bharat Centres will be activated to develop fitness and sports through a community-based approach.
  • All this is part of a “Return to Play” movement, that aims to bring Special athletes back to the sports field after two years, by gradually examining their physical and medical readiness.
About Special Olympics 
  • It is a worldwide movement started in 1968, to create a better and more equal world by fostering acceptance and inclusion of persons with intellectual disabilities, through the transformative power of sports.
  • This is done by providing year-long sports training and the opportunity to participate in competitions such as the Special Olympics World Games for Persons with ID.
Need of the programme 
  • Global research shows that people with intellectual disabilities often receive substandard healthcare compared to others, despite being at much higher risk of developing secondary health conditions that impact their quality of life and even mortality.
  • Examination reveals that 35 per cent of Special Olympics athletes have obvious, untreated tooth decay.
  • This alarming fact underlines the unpleasant truth that persons with ID either do not have access to healthcare or the care they receive is not appropriate, which can be largely attributed to the discriminatory attitudes towards disability.
Measures taken by Govt. 
  • The government has multiple schemes to support the healthcare of persons with disabilities, such as the Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram (RBSK) which aims at early identification and intervention to cover the four Ds (defects, deficiencies, diseases and developmental delays, including disability) , cochlear implant under the ADIP scheme etc.
  • However, a need to spread awareness and remove all the barriers for persons with intellectual disabilities is very much required.

Source-Indian Express 

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