Background
Despite Ghana’s Persons with Disability Act, 2006 (Act 715) making provisions for access to healthcare services for adolescents with disabilities and their families, a corpus of literature has reported that persons with disabilities continue to face challenges in accessing healthcare services. However, the voices of adolescents with disabilities and their families are very scarce in such discourse. This study explored the experiences of adolescents with disabilities and their families in accessing healthcare services as per the provisions described in Ghana’s Act 715.
Methods
This study involved 45 participants, including 25 adolescents with disabilities and 20 family members from a municipality in Ghana. Employing a qualitative descriptive design, semi-structured interviews were conducted which was then analyzed thematically and interpreted using Critical Disability Theory.
Results
The study identified two major categories of barriers to healthcare access: environmental (socio-economic difficulties, poor built environment, unavailability of rehabilitation services) and systemic (cultural beliefs, poor support at healthcare facilities and inadequate healthcare legislative provisions for families of children with disabilities). Despite legal provisions for free healthcare, participants faced significant financial barriers, with specialist services often not covered by the National Health Insurance Scheme.
Conclusions
The study calls for policy adjustments to fully cover specialist care under Ghana’s National Health Insurance Scheme, establishment of local-level health assessment and resource centers, educational campaigns to change cultural perceptions, and training of healthcare workers to promote quality access to healthcare.
Supplementary Information
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12913-024-11611-x.
