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Description
The project aims to address the inadequate provision of health services to disabled persons by providing appropriate tools to students and health professionals.
Despite the great progress made in the provision of health services to disabled persons, significant obstacles do remain. These include communication gaps, lack of training for health providers, stereotypes and lack of access to infrastructure and medical equipment.
TRACE aims to follow a holistic approach by examining equally all categories of barriers to accessing health services. For this purpose, an interdisciplinary team will implement a training program for students and health professionals to meet the needs of patients with disabilities. The program will be implemented in Thessaloniki in collaboration with the Laboratory of Primary Health Care of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, and in other regions in collaboration with the Schools of Health Services in Alexandroupoli, Ioannina and Larissa. The training activities will be accompanied by workshops with stakeholders, in order to achieve the desired interaction between health professionals and people with disabilities, but also advocacy actions. These will be conducted in the aforementioned cities and will be mainly addressed to people with mental disabilities and their partners – caregivers, aiming at raising awareness of disabled persons themselves concerning their rights to health care. Finally, in the framework of the project, the accessibility of health services’ infrastructure will be assessed in order to examine its role in the provision of the desired health service level.
The project will be implemented through a collaboration of the Association of Research and Education in Clinical Skills (ARECS), which will manage and coordinate the project’s actions, with the Non-profit organization ALL – Accessible Limitless Living, whose collaborators have significant experience in implementing educational activities related to disability.
Summary of project results
The ultimate goal of TRACE project was to address the barriers concerning the provision of public health services to Persons with Disabilities by offering appropriate educational tools to students and health professionals.
During the project, a multidisciplinary team implemented training actions for students and health professionals on the needs of patients with disabilities in the provision of health services, with special emphasis on people with mobility, sensory and mental disabilities. The training actions were evaluated by the participants and were accompanied by workshops with local stakeholders, in order to achieve the desired interaction between health professionals and Persons with Disabilities. Furthermore, advocacy actions addressed mainly at people with mental disabilities and partners – caregivers were organized, aimed at realizing the participants’ rights in the provision of health services. Finally, an assessment of the accessibility of health infrastructure was implemented in order to examine the role of the infrastructure in terms of the level of service.
In total, 9 clinical tutorials (3 in Thessaloniki, 2 in Ioannina, 2 in Larissa and 2 in Alexandroupolis) were implemented, in which 263 people participated. At the same time, 4 workshops were implemented, with the participation of 69 participants from stakeholders and local organizations. In addition, 4 advocacy actions were implemented with 87 participants. Finally, an assessment of the accessibility of the infrastructure of 3 Health Centres in the wider Thessaloniki area was carried out.