ISLAMABAD: The Executive Board of the World Health Organisation (WHO) has unanimously approved a resolution on ‘improving access to assistive technology’ during a meeting held in Geneva.

The move will pave the way for Pakistan to implement its initiative to provide the assistive devices to disabled and elderly people free of cost or at affordable rates.

“About 25 countries co-sponsored Pakistan in this resolution and all the rest of countries supported. Now the suggestion will be placed in the World Health Assembly (WHA) in May this year for voting, which is a formality. After that it will become the responsibility of the state to provide assistive devices to every disabled and elderly person,” Director General Ministry of National Health Services (NHS) Dr Asad Hafeez, who was in Geneva, said while talking to Dawn on Saturday.

He said that NHS Minister Saira Afzal Tarar unveiled the first ever global list of essential assistive devices in WHA held in May 2016 and finally the time has come that the assistive devices be provided at the doorsteps of the elderly and disabled people.

WHO estimates that today, more than a billion people need one or more assistive products. With a global ageing population and rise in non-communicable diseases, this number will rise beyond two billion by 2050, with many people needing two or more products as they age.

The world health body approves resolution which will enable Pakistan to facilitate its disabled population

However, only one in 10 people in need currently have access to such devices.

An official of the ministry, who is not authorised to speak on record, said people who will not be able to afford the assistive devices will get them through the Prime Minister National Health Insurance Programme (PMNHIP).

He said that people think usually special persons required only wheelchair, hearing aid and walking sticks but there were as many as 50 devices which can be required by the people.

“Average age of people has been continuously increasing because of development in the medical sector due to which aged people face more complications due to diabetes and other diseases which affect them and even restrict their movement, sight and hearing ability,” he said.

While replying to a question about the history of the issue, the official said that in 2016, Pakistan took the initiative and wrote a letter to the then director general, WHO, Dr Margaret Chen, to include the issue in the agenda items of its executive board.

“However, the issue was put in the floating agenda items but it was continuously discussed in regional meetings of WHO. During the last regional meeting of WHO, held in October 2017 in Islamabad, a resolution was passed under the title of Islamabad Declaration to adopt the issue in WHA. However now WHO’s executive board has passed the unanimous resolution so things have become easier,” he said.

After approval from World Health Assembly it will become possible to provide hearing aids, wheelchairs, communication aids, spectacles, artificial limbs, pill organisers, memory aids and other essential items for older people and persons with disabilities, he said.

Currently the medicines are being provided under the list of essential or life saving medicines and it is ensured all over the globe that life saving medicines would not go out of the reach of people.

Published in Dawn, January 28th, 2018