Accessibility of medical services is broader than just services. This was stated by Daria Sydorenko, Executive Director of the NGO “The League of the Strong”, during the national roundtable “Right to Health”, where she discussed the key conditions for ensuring access to quality sexual and reproductive health services for women from vulnerable groups in Ukraine.
“In Ukraine, there is a desire at different levels of government to include accessibility issues in their activities and ensure it. We already have good examples of inclusiveness, but they are not yet systemic. We need to think about how to fix this and ensure real steps towards barrier-free medicine. Accessibility of healthcare services is broader than just services,” said Daria Sydorenko, Executive Director of “The League of the Strong” NGO.
Darya Sydorenko also said that “The League of the Strong” NGO is working on the physical accessibility of services for people with disabilities in communities. The first 30 communities in Ukraine have already started working on amending existing development strategies in terms of barrier-free accessibility. Local government officials were also trained on accessibility in various sectors: transportation, urban planning and architecture, healthcare, education, and catering.
The event was organized by the Women’s Health and Family Planning Charitable Foundation as part of the humanitarian response to sexual and reproductive health services of UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund in Ukraine, with financial support from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Iceland.
The roundtable was attended by representatives of the Secretariat of the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights, the Ministry of Health, the United Nations Population Fund / UNFPA in Ukraine, officials of regional state administrations, NGOs and charitable foundations. The event became a platform for finding joint solutions to ensure and improve access to quality sexual and reproductive health services for Ukrainian women from vulnerable groups.
According to the WHO, the right to health includes four important interrelated elements: availability, accessibility, acceptability and quality of health services. During the humanitarian crisis caused by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the ability to provide health services and maintain the health of the population is significantly reduced. This includes sexual and reproductive health services.