Why you need to keep employees who experience the onset of disability

16/10/2017 0 Comments read Disability, Health & Science

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 16.10.2017 (HRM): People who experience the onset of disability through illness are often managed out of the workplace. But helping them to stay usefully employed can offer benefits on both sides.

While running down a steep hill in Oman, Mark Glascodine suddenly felt that he was not in full control of his body. It was 1992 and he was working for Shell. What followed was six months of inconclusive medical tests. He felt slight imbalance at times, but it did not impede his work as the depot manager. It took five years before a neurologist in Melbourne, where he was then posted, confirmed that he was suffering from Friedreich’s Ataxia, a rare genetic disability that affects one in 50,000 people.

At 32, it was deemed a late onset in his case, but his condition soon began to deteriorate. The Shell HR team explained to him about medical retirement, which he took in 2004. “They were being nice. It helped not having to sell my house and allowed me to retrain in career counselling for people with disability,” he says.

Continue reading →

India Needs to Focus on Its Polio Survivors

30/04/2015 0 Comments read Disability, Health & Science, Poliomyelitis

By Neena Bhandari

The Indian Government, Non-Governmental Organisations and the larger community must invest in rehabilitating millions of polio survivors facing new physical, social, cultural and economic challenges.

India was certified polio-free by the World Health Organisation on 27 March 2014. Polio immunisation has been a great success story of public-private health partnership, but now we need to replicate this to improving the lives of people living with polio.

Unlike the developed world, millions of polio survivors in India are still very young. They will need treatment and support for many more years to come. Doctors, orthotists and physiotherapists need to be trained to recognise and manage the debilitating effects of Post-Polio Syndrome [PPS]. It is also time to count and document the number of polio survivors and the problems they are facing today.

Continue reading →

After eradication: India’s post-polio problem

31/03/2014 0 Comments read Disability, Health & Science, Poliomyelitis

Polio survivors performing Sufi dance on wheelchairs. Photo Credit: Ability Unlimited

By Neena Bhandari

New Delhi, 31.03.2014 (BMJ): As India celebrates three years of being polio free there is an urgent need to invest in medical care for the thousands of people who made the most of life after having had poliomyelitis but are now facing the debilitating post-polio syndrome (PPS).1 2 PPS describes the sudden onset of muscle weakness or fatigability in people with a history of acute paralytic poliomyelitis, usually occurring 15 to 40 years later.3 Many thousands of polio survivors experience muscle weakness, fatigue, joint and muscle pain, intolerance to cold, and difficulties in sleeping, breathing, or swallowing.

The March of Dimes, an international non-profit agency based in the United States and founded in 1938 by President and polio survivor Franklin D Roosevelt, warned in 2001 that as many as 20 million people worldwide are at risk of PPS, which could leave them using wheelchairs or ventilators for the rest of their lives.

After eradication_ India’s post-polio problem _ BMJ

Continue reading on British Medical Journal

© Copyright Neena Bhandari and BMJ. All rights reserved. Republication, copying or using information from neenabhandari.com content is expressly prohibited without the permission of the writer and the media outlet syndicating or publishing the article.