Salute to the right
holders, state and non-state actors, who have actually played a very dominant
role to roll out the Government of Nepal(GON) validated
accessibility guideline. This should be considered as one of the
big initiative to include person with disability in developmental process. One should also realize this achievement as the
assurance by state parties towards the equalization of
rights, benefits and opportunities of the people with disability.
No doubt,
infrastructure can be certainly made maximum accessible during the
re-innovation and reconstruction phase which takes place routinely for physical infrastructure on public places. The chief public places where
people with disability often need to attend for their basic rights like health,
education , employment should be
completely accessible right from
the beginning. Inaccessible environment on these places
makes the person deprived on attaining basic human rights. Deprivation from basic rights tarnishes an idea of the including the people with disability
as the potential contributor of the developing Nepal. Therefore, from million
angles, the decision of making the public places an accessible place sounds
perfect. On other hand, implementation of this guideline from GON obligates state parties and non-state parties to assure the things as directed on
this guideline.
Now the government of
Nepal has already finalized guideline. The next big challenge behind is the
real implementation. I see two major parts on the implementation, one is reconstruction and another is making old inaccessible infrastructures into
accessible one. Seems there is a need of huge financial resources on both to be
constructed and to be reconstructed/re-innovated infrastructure, to make them accessible as per the definition
in guideline. Now, begins the countdown of crucial time for state and non-state
actors to plan and implement directions incited by guideline through
appropriate and vigilant utilization of the resources.
Making infrastructure
accessible requires qualified human resources around the country. One may
just think that government of Nepal has enough engineers to make those
things done at central and districts level. Yes, of course, it's the engineers who
have lots to with the constructions. But if we see from another angle,
disability is sector where the other technical human resources like
physical therapists have to do a lot. Physical therapist assess and manage to
improve the functional activity of person with any disability who have
complains on performing the independent activity of daily livings and
ambulation. This may also include the prescription of assistive and other
orthopedic devices. Hence, physiotherapists are one of the major goal owners’
who facilitate the physical rehabilitation of the person with disability to
make them independent enough for the activity of daily living.
Accessibility is also one
of the area where there is the vital role of physical therapist. It’s very
important to involve physical therapist while making the infrastructure
accessible as physiotherapist has a lot to do for mobility of the person
with disability. After the finalization of accessibility guideline, indirect
obligations `to the GON of Nepal to allocate physiotherapist quotas (at
least at each district level) is imposed. But it will not come into main agendas/ action plans until and unless this hidden imposition is highlighted by Nepalese physiotherapist themselves.
