Disabled  People’s  Situation In Turkey

     In Turkey, there has not been a specific medical department for healthcare for people with intellectual disability. In the programme of medical education, intellectual disability is taught by the disciplines of Pediatry, Child and Adolescent  Psychiatry, Neurology and Genetics.

      For eliminating information and data deficiency on disabled people, “2002 Turkey Disability Survey” was carried out in December 2002 by The State Institute of Statistics and The Presidency of Administration. In this survey disability is investigated in groups of orthopedical, seeing, hearing, speaking, and intellectual disability. In this study chronic illness is accepted as a disability also and it is analyzed separately.

      According to the results of this survey, total disability proportion in the overall population is 12,29%. While orthopedically (1,25%), seeing (0,6%), hearing (0,37%), speaking (0,38%) and intellectual disabled (%0,48) people is 2,58% of disabled population, the people having chronic illnesses is 9,70% as well.

      The appearence time of disability is investigated by congenital or acquired. It is found that having acquired disability in orthopedical (73,30%), seeing (76,32%) and hearing (67,10%) disabled people is higher. But it is observed that there isn’t any difference between having  congenital or acquired disability in speaking and intellectual disabled people. Among these two groups, having congenital disability proportions are respectively 46,63% and 47,92%.

      In Turkey, there has not been a specific health care unit for intellectually disabled people. But there are specific centers for their education and rehabilitation that are managed by both government and private sector. According to the data in “Turkey Disability Survey 2002”, only 7,2% of the intellectually disabled people utilizes these centers. The low percentage of access to these centers can be explained by their inequal distribution in different regions of Turkey and the general social security problem of the country. If you want to know more about disabled people’s situation in Turkey, you can find information on these websites (in Turkish): 

• Turkey Disability Survey 2002:  www.die.gov.tr/yayin/6_5.htm
  
  
• Turkish Prime Ministry Presidency Of Administration On Disabled People (The official center which studies on disabled people ): www.ozida.gov.tr

• Trakya University Armağan Dönertaş The Center Of Disabled Children’s Education ,Investigation and Rehabilitation (A good example of an education and rehabilitation center for disabled children from our country):      www.geocities.com/abidins2001/index.htm

Dr.Mürüvvet Gümüş Banaz

muruvvetgumus@gmail.com

web editor: administration@mamh.net