WHO to survey the needs of people with disabilities in displacement camps in Pakistan

From Online, an international news network:

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- World Health Organization (WHO) in collaboration with Institute of Pakistan Orthotic and Prosthetic Sciences (PIPOS), Peshawar is starting a detailed need based assessment survey for the Person With Disabilities (PWDs) residing in the camps.

A representative of WHO informed that the initial assessment has shown that the presence of both physical and sensory (hearing and visual) disabilities who have not received any type of rehabilitative services since the onset of the disability.

He further told that WHO Disability and Polio Rehabilitation team responded promptly to a news published regarding, Akhter Bibi, a poor and helpless but dedicated mother of three disabled children, who carried her 14 year daughter, Rangeena, with disabilities on her back and covered 15 hours distance on her foot.

Akhter Bibi, with tears in her eyes, looking at her smiling daughter, sitting on the wheel chair being pushed by her brother and sister, told that this wheel chair means a world for her, as now her daughter, instead of crawling on the ground all the time shall be moving around.

All what the desperate mother wanted was a wheel chair for her daughter who neither can move her hands nor feet. A wheel chair modified according to her physical disability was delivered to the child by WHO team.

A journey from crawling to moving around Rangeena age, 14 is suffering from Cerebral Palsy (brain damage due to decrease supply of oxygen) with mental retardation, spasticity and advanced fixed deformities of the upper and lower limbs. She cannot walk or move around and have no control over her bladder and bowl. Her two sisters are also suffering from mild mental retardation.