Voices: Shilpa Das

Shilpa Das is a Senior Faculty member in Interdisciplinary Design Studies at India’s National Institute of Design where she focuses on human-centred design in global health.

What’s your current role working on disability and health?

As a person with a disability myself, I have a lived experience of disability. I have been working on disability from within academia. Writing and publishing. Working on outreach projects. Being part of disability collectives and organisations. I also teach a module on Disability Studies.

What are access barriers for people with disabilities in health you are perceiving/experiencing?

In developing nations, lack of programmes, awareness, lack of strategic communication for systematic change, awareness on disability issues, cultural prejudices carry over, institutional discrimination, lack of health programmes that target the disabled. So, they tend to be rendered invisible.

What is it that your Minister of Health should know about and address on this issue?

Change the perspective of how disability is perceived in the health paradigm as something less than human; as a deficit; lack or abnormality, as something that needs to be fixed; as burdensome on family and society.

What are you hopeful about disability inclusion in health going forward?

Not hopeful given the apathy showed in the budget for Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (DEPwD) was slashed from INR 1325.39 crores to INR 1171.76 crores. Moreover, the finance minister deducted the allocations for different schemes pertaining to the disabled community in Budget 2021.

What has COVID-19 shown and/or changed for disability inclusion in health?

How the pandemic has impacted disability inclusion in health remains to be seen as priorities of healthcare are different at the moment. But discriminatory practices are seen, for example when severely disabled people are left out of vaccination drives.