Speaker with disability flummoxed by inaccessibility at accessibility event

NEW DELHI: The irony was hard to miss on Friday when the Central Health Education Bureau invited experts for its session on ‘Assistive Technology Module’ to improve the lives of people with disabilities. The session, intended to spotlight innovative ways to enhance accessibility, was marred by a glaring lack of it at the venue. Prominent disability rights activist Dr Satendra Singh was unable to reach the second-floor venue due to the absence of an elevator or other assistive provisions, spurring him to express deep frustration at the gap between rhetoric and reality.

The Central Health Education Bureau (CHEB), which hasn’t responded to Dr Singh’s experience, is under the Union health and family welfare ministry’s Directorate General of Health Services. Its key areas are health education, health promotion, capacity building, developing information, education and communication materials and behavioural research.

On Friday, the body invited experts to “vet” its latest module on assistive technology devices listed in the National List of Essential Assistive Products aimed at providing a “supportive environment for persons with disability”. Among them was Dr Singh, who has a leg impairment. He said that when he reached the venue and saw a ramp, he was happy. “Only when I tried to access the ramp did I realise that the entrance to which the ramp is connected was locked. When I questioned this, the guard said he didn’t have a key and the entrance had been locked for a long time,” Singh said on X. “After I called the organisers and told them this was unacceptable and made them open the gate, I found that the door had been closed by keeping planters there.”

A bigger shock awaited him. Soon after Singh entered the building, he realised that the meeting was on the second floor and the building was not fitted with a lift. “It was not possible for me to climb the two floors,” he said. “The health education body also has a staff member with a hip replacement who claimed that he was also forced to climb the stairs due to the absence of a lift. I asked them if they could shift the session to the ground floor, but that was not done.”

He fumed, “A building that has posters all around on accessibility lacked the very basic for people with disabilities. Many buildings in the city have installed stair lifts, but here there was nothing.” He said he had left with his head held high and refused to compromise on his dignity but was deeply disappointed at the experience.

“How are we supposed to contribute to policy when the most basic physical barriers stop us from even entering the building? This exclusion is happening right under the ministry's nose!” he wrote on X. "How many more years must we waste demanding accessibility from the health and family welfare ministry when it’s already a legal mandate under the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act? This is not a favour — it’s the LAW. Yet, we’re still fighting for basic rights. Enough is enough.”

TOI reached out to the CHEB director to seek his comment on the matter, but received no response.