The Problem Of Disability And Poverty In South Africa

‘Endemic and widespread poverty continues to disfigure the face of our country. It will always be impossible for us to say that we have fully restored the dignity of all our people if this situation persists. For this reason, the struggle to eradicate poverty has been and will continue to be a cornerstone of the national effort to build the new South Africa’. One of the most serious issues that South Africa is confronting is destitution. Families in South Africa live in unacceptable conditions. The South African government strives to cut down the rate of neediness, yet it additionally appears to increment as they attempt. Likewise, it has been demonstrated that neediness can cause inability. This article takes a gander at the connection among destitution and one of the models of handicap and what this implies as rising Integrated Health Professionals. Poverty can allude to unique things. One imperative string of neediness is the thought of material need particularly the absence of assets important for survival. Be that as it may, dignity and agency are additionally another essential string: individuals who can survive may in any case be viewed as poor if survival expects them to surrender their sense of pride, or on the off chance that they are not ready to satisfy their negligible social commitments in the public eye. Another essential string is that of abstract understanding: individuals are normally viewed as poor on the off chance that they encounter types of do not have that prompt enduring. In any case, a standout amongst the most well-known meaning of neediness is the absence of salary. Which can likewise be viewed as multidimensional, incorporating different issues, for example, lodging, wellbeing, training, access to administrations and to different roads of getting to assets and what is to some degree disputably alluded to as 'social capital' and access to social power relations. Neediness has generally been estimated utilizing salary or utilization indictors. This requires the meaning of a subsistence pay level underneath which a man is thought to be poor which can cause disability.

Disability is the detriment or confinement of movement caused by a public that takes next to zero record of individuals who have debilitation and along these lines prohibit from standard exercises. The distinctive kinds of disabilities are each critical to decide the effect of inabilities in the capability of the populace to take an interest in financial exercises. A few outcomes demonstrate that the most incessant inabilities in the populace matured 15-49 years are physical (32%), intellectual (23, 8%) and sight (14, 7%). Emotion (7, 8%) and communicating (6, 7%) incapacities are less basic among the populace living with handicaps which connects to the models of inability. The models of disabilities are apparatuses for characterizing hindrance and at last, for giving a premise whereupon government and society can devise systems for addressing the requirements for incapacitated individuals. It comprises social, medical and biopsychosocial. The medical model or ailment approach depends on the view that disability is caused by infection or injury and its goals or arrangement is intercession given and controlled by experts. Inability is seen as deviation from typicality and the job of people with handicap is to acknowledge the consideration controlled by and forced by wellbeing experts who are viewed as the specialists. In this model, inability is considered as living inside the person. The social model of disability sees inability as socially developed and an outcome of society's absence of mindfulness and worry about the individuals who may require a few changes to live full, profitable lives. The model, alluded to by some as the obstructions display, sees the therapeutic conclusion, sickness or damage as having no part in inability. Or maybe, society is viewed as the reason for handicap, which is viewed as an outcome of a situation made for the physically fit larger part. Lastly, the biopsychosocial approach or model of incapacity sees handicap as emerging from a mix of variables at the physical, enthusiastic and natural levels. From this, we can deduce that there is a relationship with poverty and one of the model of disability which is the biopsychosocial model.

The biopsychosocial demonstrate takes the concentration past the individual and addresses issues that collaborate to influence the capacity of the person to keep up as high a level of wellbeing and prosperity as could be expected under the circumstances and to work inside society. This methodology is predictable with the WHO's reexamined meanings of inability. It perceives that inabilities are frequently because of ailment or damage and does not expel the significance of the effect of organic, passionate and natural issues on wellbeing, prosperity, and capacity in the public eye. Scrutinizes of this model have proposed that the debilitating condition, instead of the individual and the experience of the individual with an incapacity, is the characterizing develop of the biopsychosocial model. Based on this approach it is evident that the relationship between poverty and disability is the fact that poverty causes disability. It can be caused through malnutrition which is lack of proper nutrition, caused by not having enough to eat, not eating enough of the right things, poor health services or some cannot access healthcare due to not having transport or wheelchair, dangerous and living conditions which are dirty and not safe where accidents on job can happen and sometimes the workers’ rights are not practiced. Likewise, the relationship that disability causes poverty where they have poor access to education and work due to the disability that they have some places are not disability friendly therefore if someone were to be exposed to those certain places so much effort must be put in ensuring that they are comfortable. And it is known to everybody that if you are uneducated, you have no good chances of getting a well-paying job that will sustain you for the rest of your life which can cause poverty. Social stigma and exclusion can be included where people in communities have a stigma against disabled people where they are regarded weak, worthless and in some cases subhuman by their societies creating profound social barriers which results in disabled living in isolation and excluded in their communities as well.

Drawing back on the community visits that we had I was happy and sad at the same time because of the experiences that some of the community members who were disabled shared with us. One community member spoke highly of the community clinic that whenever he goes for his check-ups or simply to fetch medication the process is usually very fast. This is because the clinic has a system that all disabled patients should have a disability card in which they issue, and they are considered as priority. This made me happy to see that the clinic implemented a system where rights for disabled people are taken into consideration. However, it was a different case for another member. The member explained that they went to the same community clinic where they were in a critical condition, but they had to wait for 5 hours to see a doctor and another 5 hours to get an x-ray. I was appalled at the fact as old and critical as they were they had to sit for 10 hours unattended, thinking do all healthcare facilities not operate under the triage system. I thought to myself did they not attend to her because they knew that free healthcare is being offered therefore she needs to wait because they are doing her a “favor”. One member also reported that they are diabetic but because of poverty her diet was not suitable for her condition where unfortunately they had to amputate her leg. I was broken-hearted at the fact that they said the doctor did mention that they need to practice a balanced diet but because of the poverty they are facing they were not able to afford it where I thought that more healthcare facilities should provide “healthy food” to prevent non-communicable diseases. Because of the contradicting experiences shared by the members I did show a behavior of volatile but also caring and considerate.

All this being under relationship of poverty causing disability. Whereas with disability causing poverty, one member reported that they are staying at the second floor of their flats where they do not even remember the last time they were outside and went somewhere other than being inside the house. This is because whenever she wanted to go outside people would have to carry her up and down in which she felt like a burden and she had applied to the government to move downstairs but no reply till today. Gloomy feeling, I had in my heart thinking about not being able to go outside and feeling the fresh air and being excluded from things in your community and how the government has not moved her which I realized that there are probably hundreds of people who have applied as well. But despite this, she had the most positive energy which made me extremely happy where I shed a tear. The most grounded exercise I detracted from this experience is a crucial one: Never think little of the numerous and quick ways individuals adjust to challenges. Need really is the mother of creation. Permitting our points of view to stop at "can'ts" places restricts the lives of those with inabilities a long way past what the genuine "shortfalls" really do. I have figured out how to approach incapacity from the viewpoint not of "jars" but rather of "hows. " I ask not whether somebody "can" accomplish something, but rather "how" they can do it. As an emerging IHP I plan on improving my reflective and empathic dimension as there were lot of times I sensitized more than on a professional level and experienced negative feelings. I plan on improving by being more understanding that comes from self-awareness, being reflective and conscious of my feelings, attitudes and behavior.

In conclusion, the relationship between poverty and disability within the psychosocial model of disability is of significance. The more we recognize the job of instruction, work and social prosperity to the life of a man with incapacities, the better we will have the capacity to bear the cost of them the sense of pride they merit, to furnish them with fair access to training, business and social administrations, and to lift them and their families from destitution and in this way break the neediness inability interdependency.