The strategy for COVID-19 continues without including people with disabilities both in access to preventive information, and in epidemiological monitoring, medical and hospital services.
The journalist Katia D’Artigues, director and founder of the portal Yo Tambien, regrets that the responses that are needed are not yet coming from the State or from the health authorities, but via civil society.
It raises the importance of disaggregating the data, not only by age and sex of people affected by the virus, but also by disability, considering that it is a group at greater risk of vulnerability due to the structural discrimination that exists towards this group, manifested in access to health.
On April 3, that portal made public the questions it sent to Undersecretary Hugo López-Gatell regarding why it does not mention people with disabilities as a population at particular risk during the pandemic, given that it has precarious health conditions in many cases, and if there will be a protocol for them.
Questions to the official highlighted the lack of visibility to the fact that half of this population are older people who need support.
He was also asked what measures there would be to protect health and support the work of people who care for others with disabilities or older people who could contract COVID-19.
Although López-Gatell responded to the Yo Tambien portal that they are already working on these concerns, Katia D’Artigues considers that the answers were generalities, limited and still deficient approaches. Clear plans are still awaited that incorporate the recommended good practices by the UN, the OAS and civil society organizations.
The journalist proposes to design manuals for families on how to deal with the crisis and to make travel measures more flexible, for example, for people with autism who need to go outside, among other recommendations.
