Kumasi, Aug. 2, GNA - Madam Juliana Osei, Coordinator of the Special Education Unit of the Ghana Education Service (GES) in Kumasi, has called on parents living with children with disabilities to endeavour to enrol them in school. She said this would help them to acquire knowledge and employable skills which would help them to become independent and contribute to national development.

Madam Osei was speaking at a meeting dubbed: "Interaction with Parents of Children with Disabilities" under the Ghana Society of the Physically Disabled (GSPD) reaching out to Children with Disability Pilot Project at Buokrom in Kumasi on Saturday. The Coordinator said there was the need for parents to accept the situation of children with disabilities and work assiduously to assist them to come out from their predicaments. She observed that disabled persons, who often begged for alms at the wayside, allowed the public to look down on them and noted that the time had come for society to shun that practice. She said children with disabilities needed the right type of education, shelter, healthy food and quality health care delivery at all levels. Madam Osei also advised pregnant mothers to be extra cautious before, during and after pregnancy since many children's disabilities start from those periods.

Dr Joslin Dogbe, Paediatrician at the Department of Child Health, Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) said, early intervention services were very critical in solving variety of physiological developmental problems of the child. He advised parents to send their children to hospitals for treatment when ever they observed that the child was sick and refrain from self-medication which could complicates matters. He noted that in most cases, disabled children brought to the hospital for treatment were malnourished, an indication that there were many times of neglect as far as their dietary needs were concerned.

Mr George Yamoah-Manu, Headmaster, Garden City Special School for the Mentally Handicapped in Kumasi, appealed to parents not to blame each other for their children's disabilities but rather provide them with the care and attention they deserved. He said they should endeavour to expose them to parent support groups, counselling and early intervention at medical centres. Mr Yamoah-Manu said parents must be a role model to their children.