April 13, 2022
Ongoing Projects
Project Aim: Promoting accessibility to rights-based healthcare services for persons with disabilities
- Project duration: 2022 – 2023
- Description: Persons with Disabilities (PwDs) still face various challenges in Georgia regarding accessibility to health and social care services. This concerns not only physical access to healthcare facilities but also other barriers such as attitudes and stigmas, lack of respective skills among healthcare professionals. This situation is preconditioned by a variety of factors such as: - Despite the fact that for the last 25 years many changes were achieved with regard to protection of human rights in Georgian healthcare system, there are still some gaps in Georgian healthcare legislation which requires harmonization with international practices and models of disability in order to ensure establishment of the legal foundations against to effectively address principle of equality and non-discrimination and ensure development of gender and disability sensitive standards of practice during the provision of medical services in healthcare; - Lack of understanding of disability issue among health professionals. One of the main reasons for this is the absence of integration of disability issue in the medical education system which is still oriented on medical model of disability.
Eventually, these gaps are well reflected in the attitudes of healthcare professionals towards PwDs and affect the quality of provision of healthcare services to persons with disabilities.
To address the above-mentioned problem, UNFPA Georgia Country Office in collaboration with Caritas Czech Republic with the financial support of the UNPRPD Multi-Partner Trust Fund started a new initiative that will support the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) under the Joint Programme “Leave No One Behind — from Policy and Principles to Practice in Disability-Inclusive Development in Georgia”. The main aim of the UNFPA Georgia and Caritas Czech Republic joint activities is to lay foundation for equitable and inclusive access to high-quality, and gender-sensitive healthcare services for PwDs, delivered in accordance international human rights standards.
Specifically, in 2022 UNFPA Georgia and Caritas Czech Republic teams will work on analyzing and revision of health legislation and providing recommendations to the Parliament of Georgia for initiation of relevant legislative changes and to align them with the CRPD principals. Namely, the amendments will address the Law on Rights of the Patients, the Law on Healthcare and the Law on Medical Practice. This output will support equality and non-discrimination and accessibility preconditions for inclusive healthcare services for PwD’s and will serve as the basis for the development of gender and disability sensitive services and revision of standards and guiding documents.
Afterward, in 2023, the project will also support capacity building of the health sector through revision of training and educational materials and building capacity of health professionals and professors so that service providers would be capacitated to deliver gender, and disability-sensitive quality health services, including sexual and reproductive services for PwDs.
- Project Results: The national healthcare legislation will be revised and harmonized with the requirements of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities; The communication standard for healthcare facilities (doctor-patient communication) will be updated, educational materials developed and trainings delivered based on the revised communication standards to health professionals, including professors at the Tbilisi State Medical University conducted.
- Donor: The United Nations Partnership for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Multi-Partner Trust Fund
- Budget: 41 600 USD
