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Health Care Advocacy
Polio survivors, like individuals from other disability communities, require life-long intermittent intervention. Many chronically ill individuals have the dual challenge of managing their complex conditions while also negotiating innumerable obstacles to accessing quality health care.
Current health care reimbursement structures are essentially acute care treatment frameworks and are not designed to meet the long-term care needs of individuals with chronic, progressive disabilities. "Keeping America Sick," a health care advocacy essay by Reji Mathew, PhD, polio survivor, outlines a few of the political and systemic challenges that disabled individuals contend with when accessing care.
Dr. Mathew is a psychotherapist and clinical instructor at New York University. She is also a freelance writer. Her advocacy work raises awareness among media, health care providers, and the public of the long- term care needs of individuals with mobility, paralytic and neurological conditions.
See her monthly column at Advance for Occupational Therapy Practitioners, exploring the psychological dynamics of recovery and rehabilitation. PHI community members can download these articles as a resource in advocating for comprehensive care with individual practitioners. Each column has links to corresponding organizations and resources.