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People with intellectual disability have poor health outcomes.
NCID considers that it is important that the current consultation on the National Disability Strategy shows a depth of community concern about the poor health experienced by people with intellectual disability. Below is the relevant section of the UN Convention and a background paper providing a brief summary of:
- The research which shows things like only a 30% chance of health conditions being properly diagnosed and treated in people with intellectual disability. People are dying much younger than in the general population.
- The reasons why this is so including communication barriers with doctors and problems with skills and attitudes across the health system.
- The kinds of solutions that are required.
- The Rudd government is pursuing major health reform with equity as a central principle. However, despite lots of work, we have been having a lot of trouble getting the government and health reform bodies to see people with intellectual disability as an important disadvantaged group.
The National Disability Strategy consultation asks, "What are the greatest barriers that people with disability face to participating fully within the community and what specific local or national actions could be taken to overcome these barriers?"
We ask you to consider including inadequate health care as one of the greatest barriers to participation in the community. If a person is unwell, then it is much harder to lead a full life in the community. Please consider including information and ideas from our attached summary in relation to the health care problems facing people with intellectual disabilities and actions that could address those problems.
Jim Simpson
National and NSW Councils for Intellectual Disability
Nick Lennox
Australian Association on Developmental Disability Medicine
Background Paper for NDS Health section
UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
Article 25 - Health
States Parties recognize that persons with disabilities have the right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health without discrimination on the basis of disability. States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to ensure access for persons with disabilities to health services that are gender-sensitive, including health-related rehabilitation. In particular, States Parties shall:
- Provide persons with disabilities with the same range, quality and standard of free or affordable health care and programmes as provided to other persons, including in the area of sexual and reproductive health and population-based public health programmes;
- Provide those health services needed by persons with disabilities specifically because of their disabilities, including early identification and intervention as appropriate, and services designed to minimize and prevent further disabilities, including among children and older persons;
- Provide these health services as close as possible to people’s own communities, including in rural areas;
- Require health professionals to provide care of the same quality to persons with disabilities as to others, including on the basis of free and informed consent by, inter alia, raising awareness of the human rights, dignity, autonomy and needs of persons with disabilities through training and the promulgation of ethical standards for public and private health care;
- Prohibit discrimination against persons with disabilities in the provision of health insurance, and life insurance where such insurance is permitted by national law, which shall be provided in a fair and reasonable manner;
- Prevent discriminatory denial of health care or health services or food and fluids on the basis of disability.
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